Is Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (TMO) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds?

Because Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE:TMO) has faced declining sentiment from the smart money, logic holds that there is a sect of hedgies that decided to sell off their positions entirely last quarter. Intriguingly, Daniel S. Och’s OZ Management said goodbye to the largest position of the 700 funds followed by Insider Monkey, totaling an estimated $97.4 million in stock, and Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $26.9 million worth of shares. These moves are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 14 funds last quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE:TMO) but similarly valued. These stocks are Baidu.com, Inc. (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU), Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:REGN), The TJX Companies, Inc. (NYSE:TJX), and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:TEVA). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to TMO’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 48 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $3.19 billion. That figure was $3.83 billion in TMO’s case. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:TEVA) is the most popular stock in this table and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:REGN) is the least popular one with only 32 bullish hedge fund positions. Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE:TMO) 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 TEVA might be a better candidate to consider a long position.