Is Prosperity Bancshares, Inc. (PB) A Good Stock To Buy?

Since Prosperity Bancshares, Inc. (NYSE:PB) has witnessed a declination in interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, logic holds that there were a few money managers who were dropping their positions entirely last quarter. At the top of the heap, Sharif Siddiqui’s Alpenglow Capital dumped the largest position of all the hedgies followed by Insider Monkey, comprising about $5.4 million in stock, and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $2.2 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 1 funds last quarter.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Prosperity Bancshares, Inc. (NYSE:PB) but similarly valued. These stocks are Youku Tudou Inc (ADR) (NYSE:YOKU), BIO-TECHNE Corp (NASDAQ:TECH), GNC Holdings Inc (NYSE:GNC), and The Hanover Insurance Group, Inc. (NYSE:THG). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to PB’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 21.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $466 million. That figure was $122 million in PB’s case. GNC Holdings Inc (NYSE:GNC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand BIO-TECHNE Corp (NASDAQ:TECH) is the least popular one with only 9 bullish hedge fund positions. Prosperity Bancshares, Inc. (NYSE:PB) 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 GNC might be a better candidate to consider a long position.