Is Meridian Bancorp, Inc. (EBSB) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds?

Seeing as Meridian Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:EBSB) has witnessed a declination in interest from the smart money, logic holds that there lies a certain “tier” of hedge funds that decided to sell off their positions entirely in the third quarter. Intriguingly, Paul Orlin and Alex Porter’s Amici Capital sold off the biggest stake of all the hedgies tracked by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $6.5 million in stock, and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $0.8 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as total 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 Meridian Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:EBSB) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Lakeland Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:LKFN), Ethan Allen Interiors Inc. (NYSE:ETH), Radware Ltd. (NASDAQ:RDWR), and Inteliquent (NASDAQ:IQNT). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to EBSB’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 15 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $103 million. That figure was $131 million in EBSB’s case. Radware Ltd. (NASDAQ:RDWR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Lakeland Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:LKFN) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Meridian Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:EBSB) 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 RDWR might be a better candidate to consider a long position.