Is East West Bancorp, Inc. (EWBC) A Good Stock To Buy?

Since East West Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:EWBC) has witnessed a decline in interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s safe to say that there lies a certain “tier” of hedge funds that slashed their entire stakes by the end of the third quarter. Intriguingly, Sharif Siddiqui’s Alpenglow Capital cut the biggest position of the 700 funds studied by Insider Monkey, comprising close to $7.8 million in stock, and Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $1.5 million worth of shares.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as East West Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:EWBC) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Brown & Brown, Inc. (NYSE:BRO), CBOE Holdings, Inc (NASDAQ:CBOE), Cheniere Energy Partners LP Holdings LLC (NYSEMKT:CQH), and B/E Aerospace Inc (NASDAQ:BEAV). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to EWBC’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 24 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $600 million. That figure was $288 million in EWBC’s case. B/E Aerospace Inc (NASDAQ:BEAV) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Cheniere Energy Partners LP Holdings LLC (NYSEMKT:CQH) is the least popular one with only 19 bullish hedge fund positions. East West Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:EWBC) 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 BEAV might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: none.