Is General Electric Company (GE) a Good Stock to Buy?

Judging by the fact that General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) has witnessed bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, it’s easy to see that there lies a certain “tier” of fund managers who were dropping their full holdings in the third quarter. At the top of the heap, John Burbank’s Passport Capital cut the biggest investment of all the hedgies monitored by Insider Monkey, valued at about $172.3 million in call options. Ken Griffin’s fund, Citadel Investment Group, also sold off its call options., about $102.1 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as total hedge fund interest fell by 2 funds in the third quarter.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to General Electric Company (NYSE:GE). We will take a look at AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T), Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC), China Mobile Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:CHL), and Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to GE’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 57 investors holding shares and the average amount invested in these stocks was $8.37 billion. That figure was $5.08 billion in GE’s case. Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC) is the most popular stock in this table with 104 funds holding shares. On the other hand China Mobile Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:CHL) is the least popular one with only 20 bullish hedge fund positions. General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) 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 Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC) might be a better candidate to consider a long position.