Should You Avoid Navient Corp (NAVI)?

Because Navient Corp (NASDAQ:NAVI) has witnessed declining sentiment from hedge fund managers, we can see that there lies a certain “tier” of funds who were dropping their entire stakes by the end of the third quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Clint Carlson’s Carlson Capital cut the largest stake of all the hedgies monitored by Insider Monkey, worth about $42.9 million in stock. Neil Chriss’ fund, Hutchin Hill Capital, also said goodbye to its stock, about $8.4 million worth of NAVI shares. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 2 funds by the end of the third quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Navient Corp (NASDAQ:NAVI) but similarly valued. These stocks are Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:NBIX), USG Corporation (NYSE:USG), FNFV Group (NYSE:FNFV), and Portland General Electric Company (NYSE:POR). This group of stocks’ market valuations match NAVI’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 24 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $580 million. That figure was $367 million in NAVI’s case. Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:NBIX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Portland General Electric Company (NYSE:POR) is the least popular one with only 13 bullish hedge fund positions. Navient Corp (NASDAQ:NAVI) 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 NBIX might be a better candidate to consider a long position in.

Disclosure: None