Should You Avoid Edwards Lifesciences Corp (EW)?

Judging by the fact that Edwards Lifesciences Corp (NYSE:EW) has experienced bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s safe to say that there lies a certain “tier” of fund managers who were dropping their full holdings by the end of the third quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management said goodbye to the biggest position of all the hedgies watched by Insider Monkey, worth about $29.9 million in stock, and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $28.8 million worth of shares. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 5 funds by the end of the third quarter.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Edwards Lifesciences Corp (NYSE:EW) but similarly valued. These stocks are Synchrony Financial (NYSE:SYF), Apache Corporation (NYSE:APA), Williams Partners L.P. (NYSE:WPZ), and Southern Copper Corp (NYSE:SCCO). This group of stocks’ market values resemble EW’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 26 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1.47 billion. That figure was $2.00 billion in EW’s case. Synchrony Financial (NYSE:SYF) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Williams Partners L.P. (NYSE:WPZ) is the least popular one with only 11 bullish hedge fund positions. Edwards Lifesciences Corp (NYSE:EW) 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 SYF might be a better candidate to consider a long position.

Disclosure: None