Is Kearny Financial (KRNY) A Good Stock To Buy?

Seeing as Kearny Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:KRNY) has experienced a decline in interest from hedge fund managers, we can see that there lies a certain “tier” of hedge funds that decided to sell off their full holdings last quarter. Intriguingly, Malcolm Fairbairn’s Ascend Capital dropped the biggest stake of the 700 funds followed by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $10 million in stock, and Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $0.4 million worth of shares.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Kearny Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:KRNY) but similarly valued. These stocks are Acorda Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:ACOR), Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc (NYSE:AJRD), Amerisafe, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMSF), and American Equity Investment Life Holding (NYSE:AEL). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to KRNY’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 13 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $161 million. That figure was $131 million in KRNY’s case. Acorda Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:ACOR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Amerisafe, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMSF) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Kearny Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:KRNY) 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 ACOR might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: None