Should You Avoid Malibu Boats Inc (MBUU)?

Due to the fact that Malibu Boats Inc (NASDAQ:MBUU) has experienced a bearish sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s easy to see that there lies a certain “tier” of fund managers that decided to sell off their positions entirely by the end of the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Jeffrey Moskowitz’s Harvey Partners sold off the biggest position of the 700 funds followed by Insider Monkey, worth about $4.4 million in stock, and Peter Muller’s PDT Partners was right behind this move, as the fund cut about $0.5 million worth. These moves are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 1 funds by the end of the third quarter.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Malibu Boats Inc (NASDAQ:MBUU) but similarly valued. These stocks are BioTime, Inc. (NYSEMKT:BTX), QuinStreet Inc (NASDAQ:QNST), ChannelAdvisor Corp (NYSE:ECOM), and Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc (NASDAQ:KTOS). This group of stocks’ market values match MBUU’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 10 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $47 million. That figure was $28 million in MBUU’s case. QuinStreet Inc (NASDAQ:QNST) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand ChannelAdvisor Corp (NYSE:ECOM) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Malibu Boats Inc (NASDAQ:MBUU) 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 QNST might be a better candidate to consider a long position.