Is Kite Pharma Inc (KITE) a Good Stock to Buy?

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Highline Capital Management established the biggest position in Kite Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:KITE). Highline Capital Management had $28.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Millennium Management, one of the 10 largest hedge funds in the world, also made a $8.9 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new KITE positions are Jerome Pfund and Michael Sjostrom’s Sectoral Asset Management, Sander Gerber’s Hudson Bay Capital Management, and Ken Greenberg and David Kim’s Ghost Tree Capital.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Kite Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:KITE). These stocks are Cree, Inc. (NASDAQ:CREE), Darling International Inc. (NYSE:DAR), The Timken Company (NYSE:TKR), and Mack Cali Realty Corp (NYSE:CLI). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble KITE’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 18 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $147 million. That figure was $294 million in KITE’s case. The Timken Company (NYSE:TKR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Mack Cali Realty Corp (NYSE:CLI) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. Kite Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:KITE) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard TKR might be a better candidate to consider a long position.

Disclosure: None