What Do Hedge Funds Think of The Valspar Corporation (VAL)?

Intriguingly, Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management dumped the biggest stake of the “upper crust” of funds followed by Insider Monkey, worth about $10 million in call options, and Bart Baum’s Ionic Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $3.3 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as The Valspar Corporation (NYSE:VAL) but similarly valued. These stocks are HD Supply Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:HDS), Carlisle Companies, Inc. (NYSE:CSL), Marine Harvest ASA (NYSE:MHG), and Leggett & Platt, Inc. (NYSE:LEG). All of these stocks’ market caps are similar to VAL’s market cap.

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 $397 million. That figure was $531 million in VAL’s case. HD Supply Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:HDS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Marine Harvest ASA (NYSE:MHG) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. The Valspar Corporation (NYSE:VAL) 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 HDS might be a better candidate to consider a long position.