Brazilian Arrests Have Currency, Banco Bradesco SA (ADR) (BBD) Tumbling

Due to the fact that Banco Bradesco SA (ADR) (NYSE:BBD) has experienced declining sentiment from the smart money, we can see that there was a specific group of hedge funds that slashed their full holdings in the third quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital cut the largest position of the 700 funds monitored by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $57.4 million in stock, and Alexander Mitchell’s Scopus Asset Management was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $4.5 million worth of shares. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest fell by 4 funds in the third quarter.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Banco Bradesco SA (ADR) (NYSE:BBD) but similarly valued. These stocks are Imperial Oil Limited (USA) (NYSEAMEX:IMO), Humana Inc (NYSE:HUM), CSX Corporation (NYSE:CSX), and Crown Castle International Corp. (NYSE:CCI). All of these stocks’ market caps match Banco Bradesco SA (ADR) (NYSE:BBD)’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 39.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1.91 billion. That figure was $146 million in Banco Bradesco SA (ADR) (NYSE:BBD)’s case. Humana Inc (NYSE:HUM) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Imperial Oil Limited (USA) (NYSEAMEX:IMO) is the least popular one with only 9 bullish hedge fund positions. Banco Bradesco SA (ADR) (NYSE:BBD) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still well below average compared to the rest of its market cap peers. This is a negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard Humana might be a better candidate to consider a long position.