Is Raytheon Company (RTN) A Good Stock To Buy?

Seeing as Raytheon Company (NYSE:RTN) has faced falling interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s safe to say that there exists a select few funds that elected to cut their full holdings by the end of the third quarter. Intriguingly, Jean-Marie Eveillard’s First Eagle Investment Management sold off the biggest investment of the “upper crust” of funds watched by Insider Monkey, totaling about $157.8 million in stock. Dmitry Balyasny’s fund, Balyasny Asset Management, also sold off its stock, about $47.4 million worth of RTN shares. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 2 funds by the end of the third quarter.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Raytheon Company (NYSE:RTN). We will take a look at Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC), ING Groep N.V. (ADR) (NYSE:ING), Enbridge Inc (USA) (NYSE:ENB), and Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to RTN’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 31 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1.32 billion. That figure was $1.04 billion in RTN’s case. Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand ING Groep N.V. (ADR) (NYSE:ING) is the least popular one with only 12 bullish hedge fund positions. Raytheon Company (NYSE:RTN) 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 NFLX might be a better candidate to consider a long position.

Disclosure: none.