Do Hedge Funds Love McCormick & Company, Incorporated (MKC)?

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Carlson Capital, managed by Clint Carlson, assembled the biggest position in McCormick & Company, Incorporated (NYSE:MKC) valued at $13.2 million, as previously stated. Ben Levine, Andrew Manuel and Stefan Renold’s LMR Partners also made a $2.6 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are George Hall’s Clinton Group, Alec Litowitz and Ross Laser’s Magnetar Capital, and Greg Poole’s Echo Street Capital Management.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to McCormick & Company, Incorporated (NYSE:MKC). These stocks are Vanguard Short Term Corporate Bond ETF (NASDAQ:VCSH), Enbridge Energy Partners, L.P. (NYSE:EEP), CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CF), and Discovery Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:DISCK). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble MKC’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 22 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $580 million. That figure was $87 million in MKC’s case. CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CF) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Vanguard Short Term Corporate Bond ETF (NASDAQ:VCSH) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. McCormick & Company, Incorporated (NYSE:MKC) 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 CF might be a better candidate to consider a long position.