Foot Locker, Inc. (FL): Are Hedge Funds Right About This Stock?

Seeing as Foot Locker, Inc. (NYSE:FL) has experienced falling interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, we can see that there exists a select few fund managers that elected to cut their entire stakes last quarter. It’s worth mentioning that John Armitage’s Egerton Capital Limited cut the biggest investment of the 700 funds followed by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $72.3 million in stock, and Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $56.7 million worth of FL shares. These moves are important to note, as total hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Foot Locker, Inc. (NYSE:FL) but similarly valued. We will take a look at H&R Block, Inc. (NYSE:HRB), CGI Group Inc. (USA) (NYSE:GIB), Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK), and Philippine Long Distance Telephone (ADR) (NYSE:PHI). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to FL’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 24 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $843 million. In the case of FL, that figure was $670 million. H&R Block, Inc. (NYSE:HRB) is the most popular stock in this table, whereas Philippine Long Distance Telephone (ADR) (NYSE:PHI) is the laggard with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Foot Locker, Inc. (NYSE:FL) is not the most popular stock in this group, but hedge fund interest is still above average. Althgough this is a slightly positive signal, we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard HRB might be a better candidate to consider a long position.