Is Waste Management, Inc. (WM) a Good Stock To Buy?

Because Waste Management, Inc. (NYSE:WM) has faced bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, logic holds that there exists a select few money managers that decided to sell off their positions entirely in the third quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group said goodbye to the biggest investment of the 700 funds watched by Insider Monkey, comprising close to $12.8 million in stock. Andrew Sandler’s fund, Sandler Capital Management, also said goodbye to its stock, worth about $7.3 million. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Waste Management, Inc. (NYSE:WM). These stocks are The Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE:BX), Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI), Aon PLC (NYSE:AON), and Johnson Controls, Inc. (NYSE:JCI). All of these stocks’ market caps are similar to WM’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 46 funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $2.51 billion. That figure was $2122 million in WM’s case. Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Aon PLC (NYSE:AON) is the least popular one with only 31 investors holding shares. Waste Management, Inc. (NYSE:WM) 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 ATVI might be a better candidate to consider a long position.