Is Brinker International, Inc. (EAT) A Good Stock To Buy Right Now?

Seeing as Brinker International, Inc. (NYSE:EAT) has faced bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s safe to say that there were a few fund managers that decided to sell off their entire stakes in the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Alexander Mitchell’s Scopus Asset Management dumped the largest investment of all the hedgies followed by Insider Monkey, valued at an estimated $6.8 million in call options., and John D. Gillespie’s Prospector Partners was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $3.8 million worth. Overall we don’t see any positive signals in terms of hedge fund sentiment towards Brinker.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Brinker International, Inc. (NYSE:EAT). We will take a look at Papa John’s Int’l, Inc. (NASDAQ:PZZA), PRA Health Sciences Inc (NASDAQ:PRAH), Tech Data Corp (NASDAQ:TECD), and Compass Minerals International, Inc. (NYSE:CMP). All of these stocks’ market caps are similar to EAT’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 16.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $189 million. That figure was $163 million in EAT’s case. PRA Health Sciences Inc (NASDAQ:PRAH) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Compass Minerals International, Inc. (NYSE:CMP) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Brinker International, Inc. (NYSE:EAT) 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 PRAH might be a better candidate to consider a long position.