Hedge Funds Aren’t Crazy About Regions Financial Corporation (RF) Anymore

Seeing as Regions Financial Corporation (NYSE:RF) has faced declining sentiment from hedge fund managers, logic holds that there exists a select few hedgies that decided to sell off their full holdings heading into Q4. At the top of the heap, David Tepper’s Appaloosa Management LP said goodbye to the biggest position of the 700 funds watched by Insider Monkey, worth close to $31.4 million in stock. Matthew Knauer and Mina Faltas’s fund, Nokota Management, also said goodbye to its stock, about $18.1 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 9 funds heading into Q4.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Regions Financial Corporation (NYSE:RF). These stocks are Lincoln National Corporation (NYSE:LNC), Vulcan Materials Company (NYSE:VMC), Host Hotels and Resorts Inc (NYSE:HST), and Concho Resources Inc. (NYSE:CXO). This group of stocks’ market caps match RF’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 40 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $945 million, above the $873 million figure in RF’s case. Vulcan Materials Company (NYSE:VMC) is the most popular stock in this table, while Host Hotels and Resorts Inc (NYSE:HST) is the least popular one with only 29 bullish hedge fund positions. Regions Financial Corporation (NYSE:RF) 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 VMC might be a better candidate to consider a long position.