Do Hedge Funds Love ConocoPhillips (COP)?

Now that we’ve mentioned the most bullish investors, let’s also take a look at some funds that got rid of their entire stakes in the stock during the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Jean-Marie Eveillard’s First Eagle Investment Management got rid of the biggest stake of the “upper crust” of funds watched by Insider Monkey, valued at close to $363.8 million in stock, and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $30.5 million worth of call options.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Statoil ASA (ADR) (NYSE:STO), EOG Resources Inc (NYSE:EOG), Eni SpA (ADR) (NYSE:E), and Honda Motor Co Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:HMC). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to COP’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 19 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $384 million. That figure was $1.33 billion in COP’s case. EOG Resources Inc (NYSE:EOG) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Eni SpA (ADR) (NYSE:E) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard EOG might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: None