Is American Vanguard Corp. (AVD) Worthy of Your Portfolio?

Due to the fact that American Vanguard Corp. (NYSE:AVD) has faced a falling interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, logic holds that there were a few fund managers that decided to sell off their entire stakes in the third quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Robert B. Gillam’s McKinley Capital Management sold off the biggest stake of the “upper crust” of funds tracked by Insider Monkey, worth close to $2.2 million in stock, and Michael Platt and William Reeves’s BlueCrest Capital Mgmt. was right behind this move, as the fund cut about $0.4 million worth of shares.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as American Vanguard Corp. (NYSE:AVD) but similarly valued. These stocks are State National Companies Inc (NASDAQ:SNC), Westwood Holdings Group, Inc. (NYSE:WHG), Dorchester Minerals LP (NASDAQ:DMLP), and Chuy’s Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:CHUY). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to AVD’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 8 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $46 million. That figure was $31 million in AVD’s case. State National Companies Inc (NASDAQ:SNC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Dorchester Minerals LP (NASDAQ:DMLP) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. American Vanguard Corp. (NYSE:AVD) 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 SNC might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: None