Hedge Funds Are Dumping Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (RCL)

Because Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (NYSE:RCL) has experienced a decline in interest from hedge fund managers, we can see that there exists a select few hedgies that decided to sell off their full holdings heading into Q4. Interestingly, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group dropped the biggest position of the “upper crust” of funds followed by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $12.8 million worth of options. Matthew Tewksbury’s fund, Stevens Capital Management, also sold off its stock, about $9.9 million worth of RCL shares. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 13 funds heading into Q4.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (NYSE:RCL) but similarly valued. These stocks are Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A), Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:IBKR), Viacom, Inc. (NASDAQ:VIAB), and Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU). All of these stocks’ market caps match RCL’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 45 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1.23 billion. That figure was $821 million in RCL’s case. Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:IBKR) is the least popular one with only 26 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (NYSE:RCL) is even less popular than IBKR. Considering that hedge funds aren’t fond of this stock in relation to other companies analyzed in this article, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and understand why the smart money isn’t behind this stock. This isn’t necessarily bad news. Although it is possible that hedge funds may think the stock is overpriced and view the stock as a short candidate, they may not be very familiar with the bullish thesis. In either case more research is warranted.

Disclosure: none.