Hedge Funds Aren’t Crazy About Papa John’s Int’l, Inc. (PZZA) Anymore

Seeing as Papa John’s Int’l, Inc. (NASDAQ:PZZA) has experienced a bearish sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, logic holds that there lies a certain “tier” of money managers who were dropping their entire stakes last quarter. At the top of the heap, Gabriel Plotkin’s Melvin Capital Management said goodbye to the biggest stake of the “upper crust” of funds monitored by Insider Monkey, worth an estimated $11.3 million in stock.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Papa John’s Int’l, Inc. (NASDAQ:PZZA). These stocks are AMEC Foster Wheeler PLC (NYSE:AMCBF), Fossil Inc (NASDAQ:FOSL), Communications Sales & Leasing Inc (NASDAQ:CSAL), and Central Fund of Canada Limited (USA) (NYSEAMEX:CEF). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to PZZA’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 13 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $168 million. That figure was $114 million in PZZA’s case. Fossil Inc (NASDAQ:FOSL) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Central Fund of Canada Limited (USA) (NYSEAMEX:CEF) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Papa John’s Int’l, Inc. (NASDAQ:PZZA) 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.