Hedge Funds Are Dumping Harley-Davidson, Inc. (HOG)

Because Harley-Davidson, Inc. (NYSE:HOG) has faced a declination in interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, we can see that there lies a certain “tier” of fund managers that decided to sell off their entire stakes by the end of the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management said goodbye to the largest investment of the 700 funds followed by Insider Monkey, valued at an estimated $16.3 million in call options. Alexander Mitchell’s fund, Scopus Asset Management, also said goodbye to its holding of HOG call options, about $14.1 million worth of. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 3 funds by the end of the third quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Harley-Davidson, Inc. (NYSE:HOG) but similarly valued. We will take a look at POSCO (ADR) (NYSE:PKX), Discovery Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:DISCA), Markel Corporation (NYSE:MKL), and Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to HOG’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $689 million. That figure was $693 million in HOG’s case. Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) is the most popular stock in this table, while POSCO (ADR) (NYSE:PKX) is the least popular one with only 12 bullish hedge fund positions. Harley-Davidson, Inc. (NYSE:HOG) 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 CTXS might be a better candidate to consider a long position.