Is Investors Bancorp, Inc. (ISBC) A Good Stock To Buy?

Seeing as Investors Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISBC) has witnessed a decline in interest from the smart money, it’s easy to see that there is a sect of hedge funds that slashed their entire stakes by the end of the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Peter Muller’s PDT Partners dropped the biggest investment of the “upper crust” of funds watched by Insider Monkey, comprising about $0.7 million in stock. Emanuel J. Friedman’s fund, EJF Capital, also dropped its stock, about $0.6 million worth of ISBC shares. These moves are interesting, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 1 fund by the end of the third quarter.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Investors Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISBC). These stocks are Jabil Circuit, Inc. (NYSE:JBL), Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FICO), Woodward Inc (NASDAQ:WWD), and Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to ISBC’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 19 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $395 million. That figure was $610 million in ISBC’s case. Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FICO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Woodward Inc (NASDAQ:WWD) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Investors Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISBC) 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 FICO might be a better candidate to consider a long position.

Disclosure: none.