Is Vera Bradley, Inc. (VRA) Worthy of Your Portfolio?

We already know that not all hedge funds are bullish on the stock and some hedge funds actually got rid of their positions entirely. At the top of the heap, Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management got rid of the largest position of the 700 funds monitored by Insider Monkey, comprising an estimated $0.5 million in call options. Ken Griffin’s fund, Citadel Investment Group, also dumped its call options, about $0.3 million worth.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Vera Bradley, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRA) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Nanometrics Incorporated (NASDAQ:NANO), PDL BioPharma Inc. (NASDAQ:PDLI), Inteliquent (NASDAQ:IQNT), and Star Gas Partners, L.P. (NYSE:SGU). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to VRA’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 $72 million. That figure was $112 million in VRA’s case. PDL BioPharma Inc. (NASDAQ:PDLI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Star Gas Partners, L.P. (NYSE:SGU) is the least popular one with only five bullish hedge fund positions. Vera Bradley, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRA) 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 PDL BioPharma might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: none