Do Hedge Funds Love PBF Energy Inc (PBF)?

Seeing as PBF Energy Inc (NYSE:PBF) has faced a decline in interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s safe to say that there lies a certain “tier” of hedge funds that elected to cut their entire stakes last quarter. Intriguingly, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies sold off the biggest position of the “upper crust” of funds watched by Insider Monkey, comprising close to $18.6 million in stock. Wayne Cooperman’s fund, Cobalt Capital Management, also cut its stock, about $7.4 million worth of PBF shares. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 1 fund last quarter.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as PBF Energy Inc (NYSE:PBF) but similarly valued. These stocks are Select Income REIT (NYSE:SIR), Yelp Inc (NYSE:YELP), Valley National Bancorp (NYSE:VLY), and Meredith Corporation (NYSE:MDP). This group of stocks’ market values resemble PBF’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 20 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $384 million. That figure was $498 million in PBF’s case. Yelp Inc (NYSE:YELP) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Select Income REIT (NYSE:SIR) is the least popular one with only 12 bullish hedge fund positions. PBF Energy Inc (NYSE:PBF) 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 YELP might be a better candidate to consider a long position.

Disclosure: none.