Is AT&T Inc. (T) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds?

Judging by the fact that AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) has witnessed declining sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, logic holds that there lies a certain “tier” of hedgies who were dropping their full holdings heading into Q4. At the top of the heap, Jason Karp’s Tourbillon Capital Partners said goodbye to the largest stake of the “upper crust” of funds watched by Insider Monkey, totaling an estimated $299.9 million in call options.. Ken Griffin’s fund, Citadel Investment Group, also dumped its call options., about $111.5 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 4 funds heading into Q4.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC), China Mobile Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:CHL), Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT). This group of stocks’ market values match T’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 62.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $9.1 billion. That figure was $2.54 billion in T’s case. Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand China Mobile Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:CHL) is the least popular one with only 20 bullish hedge fund positions. AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) 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. In this regard WFC might be a better candidate to consider a long position.