Is Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (WMT) A Good Stock To Buy?

As aggregate interest increased, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. Two Sigma Advisors, managed by John Overdeck and David Siegel, created the biggest position in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT). Two Sigma Advisors had $237.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group also made a $70 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Gregg Moskowitz’s Interval Partners, Benjamin A. Smith’s Laurion Capital Management, and Doug Gordon, Jon Hilsabeck and Don Jabro’s Shellback Capital.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) but similarly valued. These stocks are JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG), Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE), and Anheuser-Busch InBev NV (ADR) (NYSE:BUD). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to WMT’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 71 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $9.76 billion. That figure was $5.46 billion in WMT’s case. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Anheuser-Busch InBev NV (ADR) (NYSE:BUD) is the least popular one with only 32 bullish hedge fund positions. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard JPM might be a better candidate to consider a long position.