Should You Follow the Smart Money Out of Casey’s General Stores Inc (CASY)?

Seeing as Casey’s General Stores Inc (NASDAQ:CASY) has witnessed bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, we can see that there exists a select few funds that decided to sell off their full holdings in the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Bain Capital’s Brookside Capital said goodbye to the biggest investment of the “upper crust” of funds watched by Insider Monkey, worth about $91.5 million in stock, and Clint Carlson’s Carlson Capital was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $11.8 million worth of shares. These moves are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 6 funds in the third quarter.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Casey’s General Stores Inc (NASDAQ:CASY) but similarly valued. These stocks are The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAIN), Highwoods Properties Inc (NYSE:HIW), Zions Bancorporation (NASDAQ:ZION), and Dicks Sporting Goods Inc (NYSE:DKS). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to CASY’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 29 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $411 million. That figure was $448 million in CASY’s case. Dicks Sporting Goods Inc (NYSE:DKS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Highwoods Properties Inc (NYSE:HIW) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Casey’s General Stores Inc (NASDAQ:CASY) 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 DKS might be a better candidate to consider a long position in.

Disclosure: None