What Do Hedge Funds Think of Genuine Parts Company (GPC)?

Judging by the fact that Genuine Parts Company (NYSE:GPC) has witnessed bearish sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, we can see that there was a specific group of hedge funds who sold off their entire stakes heading into Q4. At the top of the heap, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management dumped the largest investment of the “upper crust” of funds watched by Insider Monkey, comprising an estimated $46.9 million in stock, and Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $5.2 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 4 funds heading into Q4.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Genuine Parts Company (NYSE:GPC). We will take a look at Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK), Enersis S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:ENI), Universal Health Services, Inc. (NYSE:UHS), and CarMax, Inc (NYSE:KMX). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to GPC’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 28 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $691 million. That figure was $392 million in GPC’s case. Universal Health Services, Inc. (NYSE:UHS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Enersis S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:ENI) is the least popular one with only 13 bullish hedge fund positions. Genuine Parts Company (NYSE:GPC) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard UHS might be a better candidate to consider a long position.