Hedge Funds Aren’t Crazy About Orion Engineered Carbons SA (OEC) Anymore

Because Orion Engineered Carbons SA (NYSE:OEC) has experienced a bearish sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, logic holds that there lies a certain “tier” of fund managers who sold off their entire stakes last quarter. At the top of the heap, Michael Barnes and Arif Inayatullah’s Tricadia Capital Management sold off the biggest stake of all the hedgies watched by Insider Monkey, totaling an estimated $7.2 million in stock. Brian Taylor’s fund, Pine River Capital Management, also said goodbye to its stock, about $2 million worth of shares. These moves are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 3 funds last quarter.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Orion Engineered Carbons SA (NYSE:OEC). These stocks are Ebix Inc (NASDAQ:EBIX), EnPro Industries, Inc. (NYSE:NPO), Nuveen Premium Income Municipal Fund Inc (NYSE:NPI), and Federal Signal Corporation (NYSE:FSS). This group of stocks’ market caps resembles Orion Engineered Carbons SA (NYSE:OEC)’s market cap.

As you can see, these stocks had an average of 13 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $108 million. That figure was $124 million in Orion Engineered Carbons SA (NYSE:OEC)’s case. EnPro Industries, Inc. (NYSE:NPO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand, Nuveen Premium Income Municipal Fund Inc (NYSE:NPI) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Orion Engineered Carbons SA (NYSE:OEC) 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, EnPro Industries, Inc. (NYSE:NPO) might be a better candidate to consider a long position.