How West Marine, Inc. (WMAR) Stacks Up Against Its Peers

With general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. Potrero Capital Research, led by Jack Ripsteen, created the most outsized position in West Marine, Inc. (NASDAQ:WMAR). Potrero Capital Research had $0.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management also made a $0.6 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The only other fund with a new position in the stock was Peter Algert and Kevin Coldiron’s Algert Coldiron Investors.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to West Marine, Inc. (NASDAQ:WMAR). We will take a look at eHealth, Inc. (NASDAQ:EHTH), MBT Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:MBTF), Home Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:HBCP), and Summit Financial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SMMF). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to WMAR’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $32 million. That figure was $29 million in WMAR’s case. eHealth, Inc. (NASDAQ:EHTH) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Home Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:HBCP) is the least popular one with only 2 bullish hedge fund positions. West Marine, Inc. (NASDAQ:WMAR) 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 EHTH might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: None