Is CVB Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:CVBF) an excellent investment today? Investors who are in the know are in a bullish mood. The number of bullish hedge fund bets increased by 3 lately.
According to most shareholders, hedge funds are perceived as slow, old investment vehicles of yesteryear. While there are greater than 8000 funds with their doors open at present, we hone in on the aristocrats of this group, about 450 funds. It is widely believed that this group has its hands on the majority of the smart money’s total asset base, and by tracking their best picks, we have come up with a number of investment strategies that have historically outperformed the market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outpaced the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per year for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve began to sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have beaten the S&P 500 index by 24 percentage points in 7 months (see all of our picks from August).
Equally as beneficial, optimistic insider trading activity is another way to break down the financial markets. Obviously, there are many incentives for an upper level exec to sell shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would initiate a purchase. Various empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this strategy if you know where to look (learn more here).
With these “truths” under our belt, we’re going to take a glance at the key action surrounding CVB Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:CVBF).
Hedge fund activity in CVB Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:CVBF)
Heading into 2013, a total of 9 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 50% from the third quarter. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes significantly.
According to our comprehensive database, Bruce Kovner’s Caxton Associates LP had the biggest position in CVB Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:CVBF), worth close to $2.3 million, accounting for 0.1% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Ken Griffin of Citadel Investment Group, with a $2.1 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining peers with similar optimism include Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.
As aggregate interest increased, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. Renaissance Technologies, managed by Jim Simons, established the most outsized position in CVB Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:CVBF). Renaissance Technologies had 0.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors also made a $0.4 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new CVBF positions are Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management, David Costen Haley’s HBK Investments, and Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp.
What do corporate executives and insiders think about CVB Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:CVBF)?
Insider trading activity, especially when it’s bullish, is at its handiest when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest half-year time frame, CVB Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:CVBF) has seen 1 unique insiders purchasing, and 5 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
Let’s also take a look at hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to CVB Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:CVBF). These stocks are Glacier Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:GBCI), BBCN Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:BBCN), PacWest Bancorp (NASDAQ:PACW), WestAmerica Bancorp. (NASDAQ:WABC), and Western Alliance Bancorporation (NYSE:WAL). All of these stocks are in the regional – pacific banks industry and their market caps are closest to CVBF’s market cap.
| Company Name | # of Hedge Funds | # of Insiders Buying | # of Insiders Selling |
| Glacier Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:GBCI) | 9 | 0 | 0 |
| BBCN Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:BBCN) | 10 | 0 | 0 |
| PacWest Bancorp (NASDAQ:PACW) | 9 | 0 | 2 |
| WestAmerica Bancorp. (NASDAQ:WABC) | 7 | 0 | 3 |
| Western Alliance Bancorporation (NYSE:WAL) | 11 | 0 | 8 |
With the results exhibited by the aforementioned research, everyday investors must always monitor hedge fund and insider trading activity, and CVB Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:CVBF) shareholders fit into this picture quite nicely.
