Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Franklin Resources, Inc. (BEN)

Judging by the fact that Franklin Resources, Inc. (NYSE:BEN) has experienced bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, it’s easy to see that there were a few fund managers that elected to cut their positions entirely heading into Q4. Intriguingly, Matthew Sidman’s Three Bays Capital sold off the largest position of all the hedgies tracked by Insider Monkey, totaling about $66.7 million in stock. Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s fund, Adage Capital Management, also dumped its stock, about $6.7 million worth of BEN shares. These moves are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Franklin Resources, Inc. (NYSE:BEN) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Brown-Forman Corporation (NYSE:BF), Canadian Pacific Railway Limited (USA) (NYSE:CP), Hormel Foods Corporation (NYSE:HRL), and Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE:OMC). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to BEN’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1.07 billion. That figure was $1.96 billion in BEN’s case. Canadian Pacific Railway Limited (USA) (NYSE:CP) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Brown-Forman Corporation (NYSE:BF) is the least popular one with only 21 bullish hedge fund positions. Franklin Resources, Inc. (NYSE:BEN) 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 CP might be a better candidate to consider a long position.

Disclosure: none.