Western Digital Corp. (WDC) Rising As Investors Digest Company’s Q4 Guidance Call

As industrywide interest jumped in Q1, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Magnetar Capital, managed by Alec Litowitz and Ross Laser, created the most outsized call position in Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ:WDC). Magnetar Capital had $21.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Matthew Halbower’s Pentwater Capital Management also initiated a $21 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Ernest Chow and Jonathan Howe’s Sensato Capital Management, Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group, and George Hall’s Clinton Group.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ:WDC). These stocks are Franco-Nevada Corporation (NYSE:FNV), NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:NDAQ), Federal Realty Investment Trust (NYSE:FRT), and Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to WDC’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 27 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $546 million. That figure was $824 million in WDC’s case. Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Federal Realty Investment Trust (NYSE:FRT) is the least popular one with only 15 bullish hedge fund positions. Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ:WDC) 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 MU might be a better candidate to consider for a long position.

Disclosure: None