Hedge Funds Aren’t Crazy About NeoPhotonics Corp (NPTN) Anymore

Judging by the fact that NeoPhotonics Corp (NYSE:NPTN) has experienced a decline in interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, we can see that there exists a select few money managers that elected to cut their positions entirely heading into Q4. At the top of the heap, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management dropped the largest position of all the hedgies tracked by Insider Monkey, valued at close to $5.1 million in stock. Richard Driehaus’ fund, Driehaus Capital, also cut its stock, about $4.9 million worth.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to NeoPhotonics Corp (NYSE:NPTN). We will take a look at Oppenheimer Holdings Inc. (USA) (NYSE:OPY), TechTarget Inc (NASDAQ:TTGT), Pacific Biosciences of California (NASDAQ:PACB), and Ameresco Inc (NYSE:AMRC). This group of stocks’ market valuations match NPTN’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 11 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $43 million. That figure was $60 million in NPTN’s case. TechTarget Inc (NASDAQ:TTGT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Ameresco Inc (NYSE:AMRC) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. NeoPhotonics Corp (NYSE:NPTN) 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 TTGT might be a better candidate to consider a long position.