Is Zions Bancorp (ZION) A Good Stock To Buy?

Judging by the fact that Zions Bancorp (NASDAQ:ZION) has witnessed bearish sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, logic holds that there were a few funds who sold off their full holdings last quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Carson Yost’s Yost Capital Management cut the largest stake of the “upper crust” of funds tracked by Insider Monkey, comprising close to $11.4 million in stock. Matthew Tewksbury’s fund, Stevens Capital Management, also dropped its stock, about $7.1 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 1 funds last quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Zions Bancorp (NASDAQ:ZION) but similarly valued. These stocks are Dicks Sporting Goods Inc (NYSE:DKS), Parsley Energy Inc (NYSE:PE), EPR Properties (NYSE:EPR), and Weingarten Realty Investors (NYSE:WRI). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble ZION’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 29.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $516 million. That figure was $472 million in ZION’s case. Parsley Energy Inc (NYSE:PE) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Weingarten Realty Investors (NYSE:WRI) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. Zions Bancorp (NASDAQ:ZION) 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 PE might be a better candidate to consider a long position.