Insider Purchase Boosts Skechers USA Inc (SKX), But Hedge Funds Are Selling

Judging by the fact that Skechers USA Inc (NYSE:SKX) has faced falling interest from hedge fund managers, we can see that there exists a select few fund managers that slashed their entire stakes last quarter. Interestingly, Jacob Doft’s Highline Capital Management dumped the biggest position of the 700 funds watched by Insider Monkey, worth close to $75 million in stock. Ken Heebner’s fund, Capital Growth Management, also dropped its stock, about $62.1 million worth of SKX shares. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 5 funds last quarter.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Skechers USA Inc (NYSE:SKX). We will take a look at MDU Resources Group Inc (NYSE:MDU), Energen Corporation (NYSE:EGN), ABIOMED, Inc. (NASDAQ:ABMD), and Williams-Sonoma, Inc. (NYSE:WSM). This group of stocks’ market valuations match SKX’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 21 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $466 million. That figure was $228 million in SKX’s case. Energen Corporation (NYSE:EGN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand MDU Resources Group Inc (NYSE:MDU) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. Skechers USA Inc (NYSE:SKX) 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 recently, not fleeing from. In this regard EGN might be a better candidate to consider a long position in at this time.

Disclosure: None