Is PepsiCo, Inc. (PEP) Worthy of Your Portfolio?

Because PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE:PEP) has experienced falling interest from the smart money, it’s safe to say that there exists a select few hedge funds that slashed their positions entirely by the end of the third quarter. Interestingly, Jonathon Jacobson’s Highfields Capital Management dumped the biggest stake of all the hedgies watched by Insider Monkey, valued at close to $132.4 million in stock, and First Eagle Investment Management was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $126.6 million worth of shares. These moves are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 1 funds by the end of the third quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE:PEP) but similarly valued. We will take a look at International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM), Unilever plc (ADR) (NYSE:UL), Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO), and Unilever N.V. (ADR) (NYSE:UN). This group of stocks’ market values match PEP’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 36 investors holding shares at the end of September and the average amount invested in these stocks was $5.11 billion. That figure was $4.79 billion in PepsiCo’s case. Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Unilever plc (ADR) (NYSE:UL) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE:PEP) 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 CSCO might be a better candidate to consider a long position.