After several tireless days we have finished crunching the numbers from nearly 900 13F filings issued by the elite hedge funds and other investment firms that we track at Insider Monkey, which disclosed those firms’ equity portfolios as of June 30th. The results of that effort will be put on display in this article, as we share valuable insight into the smart money sentiment towards Amerant Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:AMTB).
Amerant Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:AMTB) has seen an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds in recent months. Amerant Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:AMTB) was in 10 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of June. The all time high for this statistic is 6. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. There were 6 hedge funds in our database with AMTB positions at the end of the first quarter. Our calculations also showed that AMTB isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).
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 monthly stock picks returned 185.4% since March 2017 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 79 percentage points (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
Anton Schutz of Mendon Capital Advisors
At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium mining is one of the fastest growing industries right now, so we are checking out stock pitches like this emerging lithium stock. We go through lists like the 10 best EV stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our homepage. Keeping this in mind let’s analyze the fresh hedge fund action encompassing Amerant Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:AMTB).
Do Hedge Funds Think AMTB Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
Heading into the third quarter of 2021, a total of 10 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 67% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards AMTB over the last 24 quarters. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
The largest stake in Amerant Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:AMTB) was held by MFP Investors, which reported holding $6 million worth of stock at the end of June. It was followed by JCSD Capital with a $5.3 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Millennium Management, MFP Investors, and Mendon Capital Advisors. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position JCSD Capital allocated the biggest weight to Amerant Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:AMTB), around 4.75% of its 13F portfolio. MFP Investors is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 0.66 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to AMTB.
With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, some big names were breaking ground themselves. Mendon Capital Advisors, managed by Anton Schutz, initiated the largest position in Amerant Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:AMTB). Mendon Capital Advisors had $1.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP also made a $1.4 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new AMTB positions are Anton Schutz’s Mendon Capital Advisors, John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors, and Peter Muller’s PDT Partners.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Amerant Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:AMTB). We will take a look at Chico’s FAS, Inc. (NYSE:CHS), HarborOne Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:HONE), Citi Trends, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTRN), Clarus Corporation (NASDAQ:CLAR), Luokung Technology Corp (NASDAQ:LKCO), Taysha Gene Therapies, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSHA), and Lindblad Expeditions Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LIND). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to AMTB’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| CHS | 22 | 177666 | 7 |
| HONE | 13 | 39910 | -1 |
| CTRN | 25 | 186058 | 1 |
| CLAR | 17 | 97540 | 2 |
| LKCO | 1 | 646 | 0 |
| TSHA | 8 | 36005 | 1 |
| LIND | 8 | 66402 | -3 |
| Average | 13.4 | 86318 | 1 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 13.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $86 million. That figure was $28 million in AMTB’s case. Citi Trends, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTRN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Luokung Technology Corp (NASDAQ:LKCO) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Amerant Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:AMTB) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for AMTB is 57.8. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 25.7% in 2021 through September 27th and still beat the market by 6.2 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on AMTB as the stock returned 18.1% since the end of the second quarter (through 9/27) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
