Is Williams Partners L.P. (WPZ) A Good Stock To Buy?

Due to the fact that Williams Partners L.P. (NYSE:WPZ) has encountered a bearish sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, logic holds that there were a few money managers who were dropping their full holdings in the third quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Yen Liow’s Aravt Global dropped the largest stake of the “upper crust” of funds monitored by Insider Monkey, totaling about $49.4 million in stock, and Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $2.7 million worth of shares.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Williams Partners L.P. (NYSE:WPZ). We will take a look at AutoZone, Inc. (NYSE:AZO), Canadian Pacific Railway Limited (USA) (NYSE:CP), Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ:FISV), and ICICI Bank Limited (ADR) (NYSE:IBN). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to WPZ’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 30 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1.08 billion. That figure was $478 million in WPZ’s case. AutoZone, Inc. (NYSE:AZO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand ICICI Bank Limited (ADR) (NYSE:IBN) is the least popular one with only 22 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Williams Partners L.P. (NYSE:WPZ) is even less popular than IBN. 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.

Disclosure: None