Is Barnes & Noble Education Inc (BNED) A Good Stock To Buy?

Seeing as Barnes & Noble Education Inc (NYSE:BNED) has encountered a decline in interest from the smart money, we can see that there exists a select few funds that decided to sell off their entire stakes by the end of the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital cashed in the biggest position of all the hedgies tracked by Insider Monkey, comprising an estimated $2.9 million in stock. Matthew Tewksbury’s fund, Stevens Capital Management, also dumped its stock, about $0.3 million worth.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Barnes & Noble Education Inc (NYSE:BNED). We will take a look at Albany Molecular Research, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMRI), Greenhill & Co., Inc. (NYSE:GHL), Rudolph Technologies Inc (NYSE:RTEC), and National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to BNED’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 15 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $89 million. That figure was $94 million in BNED’s case. Rudolph Technologies Inc (NYSE:RTEC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) is the least popular one with only 12 bullish hedge fund positions. Barnes & Noble Education Inc (NYSE:BNED) 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 RTEC might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: None