Is Kite Pharma Inc (KITE) a Good Buy?

Intriguingly, David Lamond’s Lamond Capital Partners dumped the biggest position of all the hedgies followed by Insider Monkey, comprising close to $6.4 million in stock, and Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $1.8 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Kite Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:KITE) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Puma Biotechnology Inc (NYSE:PBYI), United Natural Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:UNFI), Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SBGI), and Tech Data Corp (NASDAQ:TECD). This group of stocks’ market values resemble KITE’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 22.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $421 million. That figure was $384 million in KITE’s case. Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SBGI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand United Natural Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:UNFI) is the least popular one with only 16 bullish hedge fund positions. Kite Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:KITE) 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 SBGI might be a better candidate to consider a long position.