Do Hedge Funds Love Exponent, Inc. (EXPO)?

Now that we’ve mentioned the most bullish investors, let’s also take a look at some funds that sold off their entire stakes in the stock during the third quarter. At the top of the heap, J. Alan Reid, Jr.’s Forward Management sold off the biggest stake of all the investors studied by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $1 million in stock. Peter Muller’s fund, PDT Partners, also dropped its stock, about $0.7 million worth.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Exponent, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Wesco Aircraft Holdings Inc (NYSE:WAIR), Central Garden & Pet Co (NASDAQ:CENT), Hollysys Automation Technologies Ltd (NASDAQ:HOLI), and WMS Industries Inc. (NYSE:WMS). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to EXPO’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 15.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $197 million. That figure was $61 million in EXPO’s case. Central Garden & Pet Co (NASDAQ:CENT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Wesco Aircraft Holdings Inc (NYSE:WAIR) is the least popular one with only 12 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Exponent, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO) is even less popular than WAIR. 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.