Do Hedge Funds Love Cellcom Israel Ltd. (CEL)?

Due to the fact that Cellcom Israel Ltd. (NYSE:CEL) has faced bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s safe to say that there were a few hedge funds who sold off their entire stakes in the third quarter. Intriguingly, D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw sold off the biggest position of all the hedgies tracked by Insider Monkey, valued at close to $0.3 million in stock, and David Costen Haley’s HBK Investments was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $0.1 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 2 funds in the third quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Cellcom Israel Ltd. (NYSE:CEL). These stocks are AtriCure Inc. (NASDAQ:ATRC), Universal Health Realty Income Trust (NYSE:UHT), Fox Factory Holding Corp (NASDAQ:FOXF), and Community Trust Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTBI). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to CEL’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 9 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $42 million. That figure was $25 million in CEL’s case. AtriCure Inc. (NASDAQ:ATRC) is the most popular stock in this table, while Community Trust Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTBI) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Cellcom Israel Ltd. (NYSE:CEL) 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 ATRC might be a better candidate to consider a long position.