News Corp (NWSA): Are Hedge Funds Right About This Stock?

Because News Corp (NASDAQ:NWSA) has faced declining sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, we can see that there were a few fund managers that elected to cut their positions entirely heading into Q4. Intriguingly, Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management dropped the biggest stake of the “upper crust” of funds watched by Insider Monkey, worth close to $28.6 million in stock, and Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP was right behind this move, as the fund cut about $10 million worth. These moves are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 4 funds heading into Q4.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as News Corp (NASDAQ:NWSA) but similarly valued. These stocks are AGL Resources Inc. (NYSE:GAS), Gildan Activewear Inc (USA) (NYSE:GIL), Comerica Incorporated (NYSE:CMA), and Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc (NYSE:SC). This group of stocks’ market values resemble NWSA’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 31 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $631 million. That figure was $1127 million in NWSA’s case. Comerica Incorporated (NYSE:CMA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Gildan Activewear Inc (USA) (NYSE:GIL) is the least popular one with only 19 bullish hedge fund positions. News Corp (NASDAQ:NWSA) 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 CMA might be a better candidate to consider a long position.