Is Progressive Corp (PGR) a Good Stock To Buy?

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Seeing as Progressive Corp (NYSE:PGR) has faced bearish sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, we can see that there was a specific group of funds that decided to sell off their entire stakes in the third quarter. Interestingly, Joe DiMenna’s ZWEIG DIMENNA PARTNERS dropped the largest investment of the “upper crust” of funds watched by Insider Monkey, comprising an estimated $13.7 million in stock, and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital was right behind this move, as the fund cut about $12.7 million worth of shares.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Progressive Corp (NYSE:PGR). We will take a look at Franklin Resources, Inc. (NYSE:BEN), Brown-Forman Corporation (NYSE:BF), Canadian Pacific Railway Limited (USA) (NYSE:CP), and Hormel Foods Corporation (NYSE:HRL). This group of stocks’ market valuations match PGR’s market valuation.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
BEN 32 1957076 0
BF 21 614747 -3
CP 32 2233116 1
HRL 27 706735 -2

As you can see these stocks had an average of 28 funds from our database with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1.38 billion. That figure was $914 million in PGR’s case. Franklin Resources, Inc. (NYSE:BEN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Brown-Forman Corporation (NYSE:BF) is the least popular one with only 21 bullish hedge fund positions. Progressive Corp (NYSE:PGR) 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 Franklin Resources, Inc. (NYSE:BEN) might be a better candidate to consider a long position.

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