Hedge Funds Are Dumping Nanometrics Incorporated (NANO)

Since Nanometrics Incorporated (NASDAQ:NANO) has encountered falling interest from the smart money, it’s safe to say that there exists a select few money managers that decided to sell off their entire stakes in the third quarter. Intriguingly, Michael Murphy and Daniel Donoghue’s Discovery Group cashed in the largest stake of the “upper crust” of funds monitored by Insider Monkey, comprising an estimated $14.1 million in stock, and Christopher Zepf and Brian Thonn’s Kingdom Ridge Capital was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $2.4 million worth of shares.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Nanometrics Incorporated (NASDAQ:NANO) but similarly valued. These stocks are Global Blood Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:GBT), SP Plus Corp (NASDAQ:SP), Motorcar Parts of America, Inc. (NASDAQ:MPAA), and Radware Ltd. (NASDAQ:RDWR). This group of stocks’ market caps match NANO’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 12 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $101 million. That figure was $75 million in NANO’s case. Global Blood Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:GBT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand SP Plus Corp (NASDAQ:SP) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. Nanometrics Incorporated (NASDAQ:NANO) 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 GBT might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: None