Hedge Funds Are Selling Sempra Energy (SRE)

Due to the fact that Sempra Energy (NYSE:SRE) has witnessed a decline in interest from hedge fund managers, logic holds that there is a sect of hedgies who sold off their full holdings by the end of the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management got rid of the biggest position of the 700 funds studied by Insider Monkey, totaling about $72.8 million in stock, and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors was right behind this move, as the fund cut about $37.8 million worth of shares.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Sempra Energy (NYSE:SRE) but similarly valued. These stocks are Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. (ADR) (NYSE:FMS), Health Care REIT, Inc. (NYSE:HCN), Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN), and O’Reilly Automotive Inc (NASDAQ:ORLY). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble SRE’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 $746 million. That figure was $641 million in SRE’s case. O’Reilly Automotive Inc (NASDAQ:ORLY) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. (ADR) (NYSE:FMS) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Sempra Energy (NYSE:SRE) 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 ORLY might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: none.