Do Hedge Funds Love Banco Santander, S.A. (ADR) (SAN)?

Due to the fact that Banco Santander, S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:SAN) has experienced a declining sentiment from the smart money, it’s easy to see that there exists a select few money managers who sold off their entire stakes by the end of the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital cut the biggest position of the 700 funds monitored by Insider Monkey, worth an estimated $2.2 million in stock. Deepak Gulati’s fund, Argentiere Capital, also said goodbye to its stock, about $1 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 7 funds by the end of the third quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Banco Santander, S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:SAN). We will take a look at Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS), American Express Company (NYSE:AXP), Diageo plc (ADR) (NYSE:DEO), and Honeywell International Inc. (NYSE:HON). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to SAN’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 47 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $6.03 billion. That figure was just $145 million in SAN’s case. Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Diageo plc (ADR) (NYSE:DEO) is the least popular one with only 25 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Banco Santander, S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:SAN) is even less popular than DEO. Considering that hedge funds aren’t 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. This isn’t necessarily bad news. Although it is possible that hedge funds may think the stock is overpriced and view the stock as a short candidate, they may not be very familiar with the bullish thesis. In either case more research is required.