Smart Money Ownership Of Materion Corp (MTRN) Slides During Q3

Judging by the fact that Materion Corp (NYSE:MTRN) has experienced falling interest from hedge fund managers, it’s easy to see that there lies a certain “tier” of hedgies that elected to cut their entire stakes last quarter. At the top of the heap, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group dumped the largest investment of all the hedgies tracked by Insider Monkey, worth close to $4 million in stock, and George McCabe’s Portolan Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund cut about $1.3 million worth of shares. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 4 funds last quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Materion Corp (NYSE:MTRN). These stocks are Quad/Graphics, Inc. (NYSE:QUAD), Great Southern Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:GSBC), Movado Group, Inc (NYSE:MOV), and Dorian LPG Ltd (NYSE:LPG). All of these stocks’ market caps are similar to Materion Corp’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 14.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $79 million. That figure was $34 million in Materion Corp’s case. Quad/Graphics, Inc. (NYSE:QUAD) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Great Southern Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:GSBC) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Materion Corp (NYSE:MTRN) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average and falling. This is a negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard QUAD might be a better candidate to consider for a long position.