Is Barnes & Noble, Inc. (BKS) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds?

Due to the fact that Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS) has witnessed bearish sentiment from the smart money, it’s safe to say that there exists a select few hedge funds that decided to sell off their positions entirely heading into Q4. At the top of the heap, Curtis Schenker and Craig Effron’s Scoggin cut the largest position of the “upper crust” of funds monitored by Insider Monkey, totaling an estimated $27 million in stock. Brian Taylor’s fund, Pine River Capital Management, also dropped its holding, about $8.9 million worth of BKS shares. These moves are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 8 funds heading into Q4.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS). These stocks are Gray Television, Inc. (NYSE:GTN), Q2 Holdings Inc (NYSE:QTWO), LDR Holding Corp (NASDAQ:LDRH), and Costamare Inc (NYSE:CMRE). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to BKS’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 19 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $97 million. BKS registered a much higher level: $225 million. Gray Television, Inc. (NYSE:GTN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand LDR Holding Corp (NASDAQ:LDRH) is the least popular one with only 11 bullish hedge fund positions. Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS) is not the most popular stock in this group, but hedge fund interest is still above average. While this is a slightly positive signal, we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard GTN might be a better candidate to consider a long position.