Hedge Funds Are Selling Sears Holdings Corporation (SHLD)

Since Sears Holdings Corporation (NASDAQ:SHLD) has witnessed bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, it’s easy to see that there lies a certain “tier” of fund managers that elected to cut their positions entirely last quarter. Intriguingly, Stephen C. Freidheim’s Cyrus Capital Partners sold off the biggest stake of all the hedgies tracked by Insider Monkey, valued at an estimated $3.3 million in stock. Frank Brosens’s fund, Taconic Capital, also said goodbye to its holding, about $1.5 million worth. These moves are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 4 funds last quarter.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Sears Holdings Corporation (NASDAQ:SHLD) but similarly valued. These stocks are Proofpoint Inc (NASDAQ:PFPT), SINA Corp (NASDAQ:SINA), EverBank Financial Corp (NYSE:EVER), and KBR, Inc. (NYSE:KBR). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble SHLD’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 18 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $363 million. That figure was $1.68 billion in SHLD’s case. KBR, Inc. (NYSE:KBR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand EverBank Financial Corp (NYSE:EVER) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Sears Holdings Corporation (NASDAQ:SHLD) is not the most popular stock in this group, but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal, but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard KBR might be a better candidate to consider a long position.