Hedge Funds Continue Dumping Marathon Oil Corporation (MRO)

Seeing as Marathon Oil Corporation (NYSE:MRO) has witnessed declining sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, we can see that there lies a certain “tier” of hedge funds that slashed their full holdings last quarter. At the top of the heap, Stuart J. Zimmer’s Zimmer Partners dropped the biggest stake of all the hedgies watched by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $210.4 million in stock, and Dan Loeb’s Third Point was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $60 million worth of shares. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 4 funds last quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Marathon Oil Corporation (NYSE:MRO). We will take a look at National-Oilwell Varco, Inc. (NYSE:NOV), Macerich Co (NYSE:MAC), Nomura Holdings, Inc. (ADR) (NYSE:NMR), and Whirlpool Corporation (NYSE:WHR). This group of stocks’ market caps match MRO’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 20 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $519 million. That figure was $214 million in MRO’s case. Whirlpool Corporation (NYSE:WHR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Nomura Holdings, Inc. (ADR) (NYSE:NMR) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. Marathon Oil Corporation (NYSE:MRO) 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 WHR might be a better candidate to consider a long position in.

Disclosure: None