Hedge Funds Aren’t Crazy About WEX Inc (WEX) Anymore

Because WEX Inc (NYSE:WEX) has encountered bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, logic holds that there exists a select few hedgies that decided to sell off their positions entirely last quarter. Intriguingly, Glenn Fuhrman and John Phelan’s MSD Capital said goodbye to the biggest investment of the 700 funds tracked by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $3.9 million in stock, and Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $1.8 million worth of shares.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as WEX Inc (NYSE:WEX) but similarly valued. These stocks are Panera Bread Co (NASDAQ:PNRA), United Microelectronics Corp (ADR) (NYSE:UMC), National Fuel Gas Co. (NYSE:NFG), and Navient Corp (NASDAQ:NAVI). This group of stocks’ market valuations resemble WEX’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 23 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $256 million. That figure was $171 million in WEX’s case. Panera Bread Co (NASDAQ:PNRA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand United Microelectronics Corp (ADR) (NYSE:UMC) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. WEX Inc (NYSE:WEX) 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 PNRA might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: None