Is Starbucks Corporation (SBUX) Worthy of Your Portfolio?

Seeing as Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX) has faced falling interest from hedge fund managers, it’s easy to see that there exists a select few funds who were dropping their entire stakes in the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Principal Global Investors’ Columbus Circle Investors dropped the biggest investment of the “upper crust” of funds monitored by Insider Monkey, comprising about $135 million in stock. Ken Griffin’s fund, Citadel Investment Group, also sold off its stock, about $113.7 million worth.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX). We will take a look at The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA), Toronto-Dominion Bank (USA) (NYSE:TD), QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM), and Diageo plc (ADR) (NYSE:DEO). This group of stocks’ market values resemble SBUX’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 35 funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1.85 billion. That figure was $1.14 billion in Starbucks’ case. QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Diageo plc (ADR) (NYSE:DEO) is the least popular one with only 16 bullish hedge fund positions. Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX) 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 QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) might be a better candidate to consider a long position.