Hedge Funds and other institutional investors have just completed filing their 13Fs with the Securities and Exchange Commission, revealing their equity portfolios as of the end of June. At Insider Monkey, we follow nearly 750 active hedge funds and notable investors and by analyzing their 13F filings, we can determine the stocks that they are collectively bullish on. One of their picks is Cross Country Healthcare, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCRN), so let’s take a closer look at the sentiment that surrounds it in the current quarter.
Is Cross Country Healthcare, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCRN) the right pick for your portfolio? Prominent investors are turning bullish. The number of long hedge fund bets improved by 6 in recent months. Our calculations also showed that CCRN isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video below for Q2 rankings).
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
In the financial world there are a large number of tools investors have at their disposal to grade stocks. A pair of the most under-the-radar tools are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outperform the broader indices by a solid amount. Insider Monkey’s flagship best performing hedge funds strategy returned 91% since May 2014 and outperformed the Russell 2000 ETFs by nearly 40 percentage points. Our short strategy outperformed the S&P 500 short ETFs by 20 percentage points annually (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
Chuck Royce of Royce & Associates
We leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example Europe is set to become the world’s largest cannabis market, so we check out this European marijuana stock pitch. One of the most bullish analysts in America just put his money where his mouth is. He says, “I’m investing more today than I did back in early 2009.” So we check out his pitch. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. We also rely on the best performing hedge funds‘ buy/sell signals. We’re going to go over the fresh hedge fund action regarding Cross Country Healthcare, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCRN).
Hedge fund activity in Cross Country Healthcare, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCRN)
At Q3’s end, a total of 14 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 75% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards CCRN over the last 17 quarters. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates has the largest position in Cross Country Healthcare, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCRN), worth close to $16.8 million, accounting for 0.2% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Michael Castor of Sio Capital, with a $3.4 million position; the fund has 1.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other professional money managers that are bullish consist of Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management, Renaissance Technologies and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Sio Capital allocated the biggest weight to Cross Country Healthcare, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCRN), around 1.09% of its 13F portfolio. Zebra Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.17 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to CCRN.
As aggregate interest increased, some big names were breaking ground themselves. Millennium Management, managed by Israel Englander, initiated the most outsized position in Cross Country Healthcare, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCRN). Millennium Management had $1.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital also made a $1 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new CCRN investors: Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, Michael Gelband’s ExodusPoint Capital, and Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Cross Country Healthcare, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCRN). We will take a look at NI Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:NODK), CAI International Inc (NYSE:CAI), Del Taco Restaurants Inc (NASDAQ:TACO), and Bloom Energy Corporation (NYSE:BE). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble CCRN’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| NODK | 7 | 26044 | 1 |
| CAI | 12 | 106428 | -2 |
| TACO | 13 | 29666 | 1 |
| BE | 14 | 20615 | 3 |
| Average | 11.5 | 45688 | 0.75 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 11.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $46 million. That figure was $31 million in CCRN’s case. Bloom Energy Corporation (NYSE:BE) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand NI Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:NODK) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Cross Country Healthcare, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCRN) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 37.4% in 2019 through the end of November and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 9.9 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on CCRN as the stock returned 17.2% during the fourth quarter (through the end of November) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
