Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Signature Bank (SBNY)

Since Signature Bank (NASDAQ:SBNY) has faced a decline in interest from the smart money, logic holds that there were a few hedge funds that slashed their positions entirely in the third quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Peter Muller’s PDT Partners cut the largest investment of the 700 funds tracked by Insider Monkey, comprising an estimated $4.8 million in stock. Lawrence Sapanski’s fund, Scoria Capital, also cut its stock, about $4.4 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 3 funds in the third quarter.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Signature Bank (NASDAQ:SBNY) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Vereit Inc (NYSE:VER), Skechers USA Inc (NYSE:SKX), Gartner Inc (NYSE:IT), and Williams-Sonoma, Inc. (NYSE:WSM). This group of stocks’ market valuations match SBNY’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 30 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $688 million. That figure was $424 million in SBNY’s case. Vereit Inc (NYSE:VER) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Gartner Inc (NYSE:IT) is the least popular one with only 16 bullish hedge fund positions. Signature Bank (NASDAQ:SBNY) 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 VER might be a better candidate to consider a long position.