Is Greenlight Capital Re, Ltd. (GLRE) A Good Stock To Buy?

Because Greenlight Capital Re, Ltd. (NASDAQ:GLRE) has faced declining sentiment from the smart money, logic holds that there were a few hedgies that decided to sell off their positions entirely in the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Zeke Ashton’s Centaur Capital Partners dropped the biggest position of the 700 funds monitored by Insider Monkey, valued at an estimated $2.7 million in stock. Roger Ibbotson’s fund, Zebra Capital Management, also dropped its stock, about $1.3 million worth.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Greenlight Capital Re, Ltd. (NASDAQ:GLRE) but similarly valued. These stocks are Trina Solar Limited (ADR) (NYSE:TSL), PDL BioPharma Inc. (NASDAQ:PDLI), Wilshire Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:WIBC), and National CineMedia, Inc. (NASDAQ:NCMI). This group of stocks’ market values resemble GLRE’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 17 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $115 million. That figure was just $48 million in GLRE’s case. PDL BioPharma Inc. (NASDAQ:PDLI) is the most popular stock in this table with a total of 20 funds reporting long positions. On the other hand Wilshire Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:WIBC) is the least popular one with only 14 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Greenlight Capital Re, Ltd. (NASDAQ:GLRE) is even less popular than WIBC. Considering that hedge funds aren’t fond of this stock in relation to other companies analyzed in this article, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and understand why the smart money isn’t behind this stock. This isn’t necessarily bad news. Although it is possible that hedge funds may think the stock is overpriced and view the stock as a short candidate, they may not be very familiar with the bullish thesis. In either case more research is warranted.