Should You Avoid The Boeing Company (BA)?

Judging by the fact that The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA) has witnessed bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s easy to see that there lies a certain “tier” of hedge funds who were dropping their entire stakes heading into Q4. Intriguingly, Doug Silverman and Alexander Klabin’s Senator Investment Group said goodbye to the biggest position of all the hedgies monitored by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $208,1 million in stock. Matthew Tewksbury’s fund, Stevens Capital Management, also cut its stock, about $31,1 million worth. These moves are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 9 funds heading into Q4.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA). We will take a look at 3M Co (NYSE:MMM), United Parcel Service, Inc. (NYSE:UPS), Schlumberger Limited. (NYSE:SLB), and Kraft Heinz Co (NASDAQ:KHC). All of these stocks’ market caps match BA’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 50 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $8237 million. That figure was $1177 million in BA’s case. Schlumberger Limited. (NYSE:SLB) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand United Parcel Service, Inc. (NYSE:UPS) is the least popular one with only 40 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA) is even less popular than UPS. To comprehend why the smart money isn’t behind this stock, further research is needed. This doesn’t necessarily mean this stock is not worth buying; it is possible that investors find it overvalued only because they weren’t considering the bullish thesis. In either case, more research is warranted.