Hedge Funds Are Selling Out of SLM Corp (SLM)

Because SLM Corp (NASDAQ:SLM) has experienced falling interest from the smart money, it’s safe to say that there lies a certain “tier” of funds that elected to cut their positions entirely by the end of the third quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital said goodbye to the largest investment of the “upper crust” of funds followed by Insider Monkey, worth close to $1.9 million in stock, and Andrew Feldstein and Stephen Siderow’s Blue Mountain Capital was right behind this move, as the fund cut about $0.5 million worth of shares. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 6 funds by the end of the third quarter.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as SLM Corp (NASDAQ:SLM) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Equity One, Inc. (NYSE:EQY), Western Alliance Bancorporation (NYSE:WAL), Silgan Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:SLGN), and Popular Inc (NASDAQ:BPOP). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to SLM’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 21 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $303 million. That figure was $161 million in SLM’s case. Popular Inc (NASDAQ:BPOP) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Silgan Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:SLGN) is the least popular one with only 9 bullish hedge fund positions. SLM Corp (NASDAQ:SLM) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard BPOP might be a better candidate to consider a long position in.