Hedge Funds Aren’t Crazy About Hooker Furniture Corporation (HOFT) Anymore

Due to the fact that Hooker Furniture Corporation (NASDAQ:HOFT) has faced bearish sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, we can see that there lies a certain “tier” of money managers who were dropping their full holdings in the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Peter Muller’s PDT Partners dumped the largest stake of the 700 funds followed by Insider Monkey, worth an estimated $0.7 million in stock, and Mike Vranos’s Ellington was right behind this move, as the fund cut about $0.4 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 2 funds in the third quarter.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Hooker Furniture Corporation (NASDAQ:HOFT) but similarly valued. These stocks are Reis Inc (NASDAQ:REIS), American Science & Engineering, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASEI), OMNOVA Solutions Inc. (NYSE:OMN), and Oclaro, Inc. (NASDAQ:OCLR). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to HOFT’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 11.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $30 million. That figure was $30 million in HOFT’s case. Oclaro, Inc. (NASDAQ:OCLR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Reis Inc (NASDAQ:REIS) is the least popular one with only 9 bullish hedge fund positions. Hooker Furniture Corporation (NASDAQ:HOFT) 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 OCLR might be a better candidate to consider a long position.