Is Moody’s Corporation (MCO) A Good Stock To Buy?

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Now that we’ve mentioned the most bullish investors, let’s also take a look at some funds that cut their entire stakes in the stock during the third quarter. Interestingly, Andrew Sandler’s Sandler Capital Management cut the biggest position of all the hedgies followed by Insider Monkey, valued at close to $12.4 million in stock, and David Harding’s Winton Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $9.4 million worth of Moody’s Corporation (NYSE:MCO) shares.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Moody’s Corporation (NYSE:MCO) but similarly valued. We will take a look at ConAgra Foods, Inc. (NYSE:CAG), Barrick Gold Corporation (USA) (NYSE:ABX), PACCAR Inc (NASDAQ:PCAR), and Franklin Resources, Inc. (NYSE:BEN). This group of stocks’ market values resemble MCO’s market value.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
CAG 50 2764576 9
ABX 45 1718683 -8
PCAR 26 370727 0
BEN 32 1957076 0

As you can see these stocks had an average of 38 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1.7 billion. That figure was a whooping $4.01 billion in MCO’s case. ConAgra Foods, Inc. (NYSE:CAG) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand PACCAR Inc (NASDAQ:PCAR) is the least popular one with only 26 bullish hedge fund positions. Moody’s Corporation (NYSE:MCO) 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 CAG might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: none.

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