Do Hedge Funds Love Raytheon Company (RTN)?

Due to the fact that Raytheon Company (NYSE:RTN) has witnessed bearish sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, we can see that there exists a select few funds that decided to sell off their entire stakes last quarter. Interestingly, Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management said goodbye to the largest stake of all the hedgies tracked by Insider Monkey, comprising close to $32.5 million in stock, and Peter Muller’s PDT Partners was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $15.2 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 6 funds last quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Raytheon Company (NYSE:RTN) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Twenty-First Century Fox Inc (NASDAQ:FOXA), Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC), T MOBILE US INC (NYSE:TMUS), and Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to RTN’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 43.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $2841 million. That figure was $839 million in RTN’s case. Twenty-First Century Fox Inc (NASDAQ:FOXA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) is the least popular one with only 26 bullish hedge fund positions. Raytheon Company (NYSE:RTN) 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 FOXA might be a better candidate to consider a long position.