Things Are Getting Tough for The Coca-Cola Company (KO) in Venezuela

Now, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. Soroban Capital Partners, managed by Eric W. Mandelblatt, assembled the biggest call position in The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO). Soroban Capital Partners had $556.7 million invested in the company at the end of the first quarter. Bruce Kovner’s Caxton Associates LP also made a $80.4 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new KO investors: Stanley Druckenmiller’s Duquesne Capital, Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group, and Matthew Knauer and Mina Faltas’s Nokota Management.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Anheuser-Busch InBev NV (ADR) (NYSE:BUD), Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA), Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE), and Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to KO’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 66 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $5.09 billion. That figure was $22.81 billion in KO’s case. Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Anheuser-Busch InBev NV (ADR) (NYSE:BUD) is the least popular one with only 32 bullish hedge fund positions. The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) 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 PFE might be a better candidate to consider a long position.

Disclosure: None