Is Banco Santander, S.A. (ADR) (SAN) A Good Stock To Buy?

Since Banco Santander, S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:SAN) has sustained falling interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, logic holds that there lies a certain “tier” of funds that elected to cut their full holdings last quarter. At the top of the heap, Howard Marks’ Oaktree Capital Management sold off the largest position of the “upper crust” of funds followed by Insider Monkey, valued at close to $16.8 million in stock, and Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $0.5 million worth of shares.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Banco Santander, S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:SAN) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Itau Unibanco Holding SA (ADR) (NYSE:ITUB), BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK), The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE:DOW), and HDFC Bank Limited (ADR) (NYSE:HDB). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to SAN’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 31 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1.32 billion. That figure was $202 million in SAN’s case. The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE:DOW) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand HDFC Bank Limited (ADR) (NYSE:HDB) is the least popular one with only 23 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Banco Santander, S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:SAN) is even less popular than HDB. Considering that hedge funds aren’t fond of this stock in relation to other companies analyzed in this article, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and understand why the smart money isn’t behind this stock. This isn’t necessarily bad news. Although it is possible that hedge funds may think the stock is overpriced and view the stock as a short candidate, they may not be very familiar with the bullish thesis. In either case more research is warranted.

Disclosure: None