Hedge Funds Are Dumping Cowen Group, Inc. (COWN)

Judging by the fact that Cowen Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:COWN) has experienced bearish sentiment from the smart money, we can see that there were a few funds that decided to sell off their positions entirely heading into Q4. It’s worth mentioning that Peter Muller’s PDT Partners sold off the largest position of the 700 funds watched by Insider Monkey, valued at an estimated $0.8 million in stock, and Gregory Fraser, Rudolph Kluiber, and Timothy Krochuk’s GRT Capital Partners was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $0.2 million worth of Cowen shares. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as total hedge fund interest fell by 4 funds heading into Q4.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Cowen Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:COWN) but similarly valued. These stocks are Tower International Inc (NYSE:TOWR), Sagent Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:SGNT), The Spectranetics Corporation (NASDAQ:SPNC), and Kansas City Life Insurance Co (NASDAQ:KCLI). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to COWN’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 14 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $71 million. COWN managed to attract more of the hedgies’ money than any of its peers: $106 million at the end of September. The Spectranetics Corporation (NASDAQ:SPNC) is the most popular stock in this table, while Kansas City Life Insurance Co (NASDAQ:KCLI) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Cowen Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:COWN) 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 SPNC might be a better candidate to consider a long position.