Do Hedge Funds Love Campbell Soup Company (CPB)?

As industrywide interest jumped, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Renaissance Technologies, managed by Jim Simons, assembled the biggest position in Campbell Soup Company (NYSE:CPB). Renaissance Technologies had $11.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Peter Muller’s PDT Partners also initiated a $10 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new CPB investors: David Harding’s Winton Capital Management, George Hall’s Clinton Group, and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Campbell Soup Company (NYSE:CPB). We will take a look at NetEase, Inc (ADR) (NASDAQ:NTES), Endo Health Solutions Inc (NASDAQ:ENDP), Dollar Tree, Inc. (NASDAQ:DLTR), and DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc (NYSE:DVA). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to CPB’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 44.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $3654 million. That figure was $147 million in CPB’s case. Endo Health Solutions Inc (NASDAQ:ENDP) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand NetEase, Inc (ADR) (NASDAQ:NTES) is the least popular one with only 26 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Campbell Soup Company (NYSE:CPB) is even less popular than NTES. 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 warranted.