The Insider Monkey team has completed processing the quarterly 13F filings for the September quarter submitted by the hedge funds and other money managers included in our extensive database. Most hedge funds have been producing disappointing net returns in recent years, however that was partly due to the poor performance of small-cap stocks in general. Well, small-cap stocks finally turned the corner and have been beating the large-cap stocks by more than 10 percentage points over the last 5 months. This means the relevancy of hedge funds’ public filings became inarguable, as they may reveal numerous high-potential stocks. The following article will discuss the smart money sentiment towards Sunshine Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:SBCP).
Is Sunshine Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:SBCP) ready to rally soon? Investors who are in the know are indeed getting more bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund investments experienced an increase of 1 recently. SBCP was in 6 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2016. There were 5 hedge funds in our database with SBCP holdings at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare SBCP to other stocks including Computer Task Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTG), Cumulus Media Inc (NASDAQ:CMLS), and Universal Stainless & Alloy Products (NASDAQ:USAP) to get a better sense of its popularity.
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We follow over 700 hedge funds and other institutional investors and by analyzing their quarterly 13F filings, we identify stocks that they are collectively bullish on and develop investment strategies based on this data. One strategy that outperformed the market over the last year involves selecting the 100 best-performing funds and identifying the 30 mid-cap stocks that they are collectively most bullish on. Over the past year, this strategy generated returns of 18%, topping the 8% gain registered by S&P 500 ETFs. We launched this strategy 2.5 years ago and it returned more than 39% since then, vs. 22% gain registered by the S&P 500 ETFs.
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Now, we’re going to view the latest action surrounding Sunshine Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:SBCP).
What have hedge funds been doing with Sunshine Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:SBCP)?
At the end of the third quarter, a total of 6 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a jump of 20% from one quarter earlier. On the other hand, there were a total of 4 hedge funds with a bullish position in SBCP at the beginning of this year. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, EJF Capital, led by Emanuel J. Friedman, holds the most valuable position in Sunshine Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:SBCP). According to regulatory filings, the fund has a $5.7 million position in the stock, comprising 0.5% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Seidman Investment Partnership, led by Lawrence Seidman, which holds a $2.7 million position; the fund has 1.9% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining professional money managers that hold long positions consist of Neil Chriss’ Hutchin Hill Capital, Matthew Lindenbaum’s Basswood Capital and Fred Cummings’ Elizabeth Park Capital Management. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.
Consequently, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Elizabeth Park Capital Management established the biggest position in Sunshine Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:SBCP). According to its latest 13F filing, the fund had $1.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Sunshine Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:SBCP) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Computer Task Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTG), Cumulus Media Inc (NASDAQ:CMLS), Universal Stainless & Alloy Products (NASDAQ:USAP), and Life Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:LIFE). All of these stocks’ market caps match SBCP’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| CTG | 5 | 12226 | 0 |
| CMLS | 12 | 13298 | -3 |
| USAP | 6 | 11348 | -1 |
| LIFE | 6 | 6408 | 1 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $11 million. That figure was $14 million in SBCP’s case. Cumulus Media Inc (NASDAQ:CMLS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Computer Task Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTG) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Sunshine Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:SBCP) 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 CMLS might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.
Disclosure: none.
