Is People’s United Financial, Inc. (PBCT) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds?

Seeing as People’s United Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ:PBCT) has witnessed bearish sentiment from the smart money, we can see that there is a sect of hedgies that elected to cut their entire stakes in the third quarter. Interestingly, Chao Ku’s Nine Chapters Capital Management dropped the biggest stake of the “upper crust” of funds tracked by Insider Monkey, valued at an estimated $3.5 million in stock, and David Harding of Winton Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $2.3 million worth of stock. These transactions are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 2 funds in the third quarter.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to People’s United Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ:PBCT). These stocks are Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:LYV), Silver Wheaton Corp. (USA) (NYSE:SLW), ISIS Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISIS), and StanCorp Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE:SFG). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to PBCT’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 23 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $328 million. Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:LYV) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Silver Wheaton Corp. (USA) (NYSE:SLW) is the least popular one with only 21 bullish hedge fund positions. People’s United Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ:PBCT) lags behind in terms of both the number of funds invested in the stock and the value of their holdings, which stood at $56 million. 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.