Are Hedge Funds Right to be Bearish On Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc (ADR) (MTU)?

Since Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc (ADR) (NYSE:MTU) has experienced falling interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, logic holds that there lies a certain “tier” of fund managers who were dropping their entire stakes in the third quarter. Interestingly, Kevin D. Eng’s Columbus Hill Capital Management dropped the largest position of all the hedgies monitored by Insider Monkey, comprising about $3.6 million in stock, and Mike Vranos’ Ellington was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $0.2 million worth of shares. These moves are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 2 funds in the third quarter.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc (ADR) (NYSE:MTU). These stocks are QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM), Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX), Vodafone Group Plc (ADR) (NASDAQ:VOD), and GlaxoSmithKline plc (ADR) (NYSE:GSK). This group of stocks’ market values match Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 46 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $2.41 billion. That figure was just $90 million in Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc’s case. QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Vodafone Group Plc (ADR) (NASDAQ:VOD) is the least popular one with only 27 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc (ADR) (NYSE:MTU) is far less popular than even Vodafone. Considering that hedge funds aren’t at all fond of this stock in relation to other companies analyzed in this article, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and understand why the smart money isn’t behind this stock.