Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Ryder System, Inc. (R)

Due to the fact that Ryder System, Inc. (NYSE:R) has faced a declination in interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, logic holds that there lies a certain “tier” of hedge funds who sold off their entire stakes in the third quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Doug Gordon, Jon Hilsabeck and Don Jabro’s Shellback Capital dumped the largest stake of the “upper crust” of funds monitored by Insider Monkey, totaling about $44.3 million in stock. Robert Vollero and Gentry T. Beach’s fund, Vollero Beach Capital Partners, also dropped its stock, about $3.4 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 3 funds in the third quarter.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Ryder System, Inc. (NYSE:R) but similarly valued. These stocks are FLIR Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:FLIR), Energen Corporation (NYSE:EGN), MAXIMUS, Inc. (NYSE:MMS), and Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE:BIO). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to R’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 22 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $297 million. That figure was $297 million in Ryder System’s case. Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE:BIO) is the most popular stock in this table with 29 funds reporting stakes as of September 30. On the other hand, MAXIMUS, Inc. (NYSE:MMS) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. Ryder System, Inc. (NYSE:R) 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 BIO might be a better candidate to consider a long position.