Fulton Financial Corp (FULT): Are Hedge Funds Right About This Stock?

Due to the fact that Fulton Financial Corp (NASDAQ:FULT) has experienced falling interest from the smart money, we can see that there lies a certain “tier” of fund managers that slashed their positions entirely last quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Sharif Siddiqui’s Alpenglow Capital dropped the largest investment of the “upper crust” of funds followed by Insider Monkey, worth an estimated $6.1 million in stock. John Overdeck and David Siegel’s fund, Two Sigma Advisors, also dumped its stock, about $1.5 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 8 funds last quarter.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Fulton Financial Corp (NASDAQ:FULT) but similarly valued. These stocks are Northern Tier Energy LP (NYSE:NTI), Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA), Hancock Holding Company (NASDAQ:HBHC), and B&G Foods, Inc. (NYSE:BGS). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to FULT’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 18 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $206 million. That figure was just $74 million in FULT’s case. Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) is the most popular stock in this table, while Northern Tier Energy LP (NYSE:NTI) is the least popular one with only 11 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Fulton Financial Corp (NASDAQ:FULT) is even less popular than NTI. 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.