Cepheid (CPHD) Not Doing Enough to Attract Smart Money

Because Cepheid (NASDAQ:CPHD) has experienced falling interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s safe to say that there is a sect of hedge funds who sold off their full holdings by the end of the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Renaissance Technologies said goodbye to the biggest investment of the “upper crust” of funds watched by Insider Monkey, worth close to $18.1 million in stock, and Ken Greenberg and David Kim’s Ghost Tree Capital was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $6.1 million worth of shares. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 1 fund by the end of the third quarter.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Cepheid (NASDAQ:CPHD). These stocks are IDACORP Inc (NYSE:IDA), Apple Hospitality REIT Inc (NYSE:APLE), Post Holdings Inc (NYSE:POST), and Sprouts Farmers Market Inc (NASDAQ:SFM). This group of stocks’ market valuations resemble CPHD’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 20 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $515 million. That figure was $203 million in CPHD’s case. Post Holdings Inc (NYSE:POST) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Apple Hospitality REIT Inc (NYSE:APLE) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Cepheid (NASDAQ:CPHD) 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 POST might be a better candidate to consider a long position.