Do Hedge Funds Love Toyota Motor Corporation (ADR) (TM)?

Seeing as Toyota Motor Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:TM) has witnessed declining sentiment from hedge fund managers, logic holds that there were a few fund managers that decided to sell off their full holdings by the end of the third quarter. Intriguingly, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management dumped the biggest stake of all the investors watched by Insider Monkey, valued at an estimated $6.6 million in stock. Ken Griffin’s fund, Citadel Investment Group, also said goodbye to its call options, about $2.9 million worth.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Toyota Motor Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:TM). We will take a look at Novartis AG (ADR) (NYSE:NVS), The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO), Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC), and Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to TM’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 57.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $7304 million. That figure was $300 million in TM’s case. Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Novartis AG (ADR) (NYSE:NVS) is the least popular one with only 26 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Toyota Motor Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:TM) is even less popular than NVS. 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.