Hedge Funds Are Dumping Medtronic, Inc. (MDT)

Because Medtronic, Inc. (NYSE:MDT) has faced declining sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s safe to say that there lies a certain “tier” of money managers that decided to sell off their full holdings by the end of the third quarter. Interestingly, Robert Rodriguez and Steven Romick’s First Pacific Advisors LLC sold off the largest stake of all the hedgies tracked by Insider Monkey, totaling an estimated $160.8 million in call options., and Howard Guberman’s Gruss Asset Management was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $67.8 million worth. These moves are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 5 funds by the end of the third quarter.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Medtronic, Inc. (NYSE:MDT) but similarly valued. These stocks are McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD), Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE:LLY), Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA), and AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to MDT’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 72 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $5789 million. That figure was $2051 million in MDT’s case. Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA) is the most popular stock in this table, while Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE:LLY) is the least popular one with only 47 bullish hedge fund positions. Medtronic, Inc. (NYSE:MDT) is not the least popular stock in this group, but hedge fund interest is still below average. This may indicate it doesn’t represent a good buying opportunity at the moment; therefore, we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are collectively the most fond of, such as WBA in this particular case.