Why Is The Coca-Cola Co (KO) Bleeding Smart Money?

Because The Coca-Cola Co (NYSE:KO) has witnessed bearish sentiment from the smart money, it’s easy to see that there were a few hedgies that decided to sell off their full holdings heading into Q4. At the top of the heap, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group sold off the largest position of the “upper crust” of funds watched by Insider Monkey, totaling about $43.4 million in stock, while Jacob Rothschild’s RIT Capital Partners was right behind this move, as the fund cut about $26 million worth of shares. These moves are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 2 funds heading into Q4.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as The Coca-Cola Co (NYSE:KO) but similarly valued. These stocks are Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL), Fomento Economico Mexicano SAB (ADR) (NYSE:FMX), Visa Inc (NYSE:V), and Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK). This group of stocks’ market values match KO’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 67.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $5.04 billion. That figure was $19.57 billion in KO’s case. Visa Inc (NYSE:V) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Fomento Economico Mexicano SAB (ADR) (NYSE:FMX) is the least popular one with only 16 bullish hedge fund positions. The Coca-Cola Co (NYSE:KO) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average, though thanks to Warren Buffett’s huge position, there is far more money invested in it than any of the other stocks. Nonetheless, we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. Given Cola-Cola has lost even more hedge fund support, Visa might be a better candidate to consider a long position in.

Disclosure: None