Should You Buy SunPower Corporation (SPWR)?

As industrywide interest jumped, some big names have been driving this bullishness. Bronson Point Partners, managed by Larry Foley and Paul Farrell, established the most outsized position in SunPower Corporation (NASDAQ:SPWR). The fund reportedly had $2.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Israel Englander’s Millennium Management also made a $2.2 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new SPWR investors: John Kim’s Karamaan Group, Chao Ku’s Nine Chapters Capital Management, and Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as SunPower Corporation (NASDAQ:SPWR) but similarly valued. We will take a look at John Wiley & Sons Inc (NYSE:JW.A), Columbia Property Trust Inc (NYSE:CXP), Targa Resources Corp (NYSE:TRGP), and Mentor Graphics Corp (NASDAQ:MENT). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to SPWR’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 17 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $302 million. In the case of SPWR, total hedge fund investment amounts to just $102 million. Targa Resources Corp (NYSE:TRGP) is the most popular stock in this table, while Columbia Property Trust Inc (NYSE:CXP) is the least popular one with only 9 bullish hedge fund positions. SunPower Corporation (NASDAQ:SPWR) 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 TRGP might be a better candidate to consider a long position.