Hedge Funds Aren’t Crazy About Markit Ltd (MRKT) Anymore

Due to the fact that Markit Ltd (NASDAQ:MRKT) has experienced bearish sentiment from the smart money, we can see that there lies a certain “tier” of hedge funds who sold off their entire stakes by the end of the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Shane Finemore’s Manikay Partners cut the biggest stake of the “upper crust” of funds tracked by Insider Monkey, valued at close to $23 million in stock, and David Rodriguez-Fraile’s BlueMar Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $4 million worth of MRKT shares. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 5 funds by the end of the third quarter.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Markit Ltd (NASDAQ:MRKT). We will take a look at iShares MSCI ACWI Index Fund (NASDAQ:ACWI), Regency Centers Corp (NYSE:REG), Columbia Pipeline Group Inc (NYSE:CPGX), and Lamar Advertising Co (NASDAQ:LAMR). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to MRKT’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 16 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $239 million. That figure was $184 million in MRKT’s case. Lamar Advertising Co (NASDAQ:LAMR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand iShares MSCI ACWI Index Fund (NASDAQ:ACWI) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Markit Ltd (NASDAQ:MRKT) is not the most popular stock in this group, but hedge fund interest is only 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 LAMR might be a better candidate to consider a long position.