Here is What Hedge Funds Think About National-Oilwell Varco, Inc. (NOV)

Seeing as National-Oilwell Varco, Inc. (NYSE:NOV) has witnessed a declination in interest from the smart money, we can see that there exists a select few hedge funds who were dropping their full holdings last quarter. Intriguingly, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group cut the largest stake of the 700 funds followed by Insider Monkey, totaling about $3.3 million in stock. Ray Dalio’s fund, Bridgewater Associates, also sold off its stock, about $2.7 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as total hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to National-Oilwell Varco, Inc. (NYSE:NOV). These stocks are DTE Energy Co (NYSE:DTE), Republic Services, Inc. (NYSE:RSG), Coca-Cola FEMSA, S.A.B. de C.V. (ADR) (NYSE:KOF), and Hess Corp. (NYSE:HES). This group of stocks’ market values resemble NOV’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 $748 million. That figure was $1.35 billion in NOV’s case. Hess Corp. (NYSE:HES) is the most popular stock in this table, while Coca-Cola FEMSA, S.A.B. de C.V. (ADR) (NYSE:KOF) is the least popular one with only 11 bullish hedge fund positions. National-Oilwell Varco, Inc. (NYSE:NOV) 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 HES might be a better candidate to consider a long position.