The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. Insider Monkey finished processing 821 13F filings submitted by hedge funds and prominent investors. These filings show these funds’ portfolio positions as of March 31st, 2020. In this article we are going to take a look at smart money sentiment towards Blucora Inc (NASDAQ:BCOR).
Is Blucora Inc (NASDAQ:BCOR) a superb stock to buy now? Money managers are getting more bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund bets improved by 6 recently. Our calculations also showed that BCOR isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).
Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
At the moment there are a multitude of formulas investors have at their disposal to assess stocks. Some of the best formulas are hedge fund and insider trading interest. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite fund managers can trounce their index-focused peers by a healthy margin (see the details here).
Peter Rathjens of Arrowstreet Capital
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. We interview hedge fund managers and ask them about their best ideas. If you want to find out the best healthcare stock to buy right now, you can watch our latest hedge fund manager interview here. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. Our best call in 2020 was shorting the market when the S&P 500 was trading at 3150 after realizing the coronavirus pandemic’s significance before most investors. With all of this in mind let’s take a glance at the key hedge fund action regarding Blucora Inc (NASDAQ:BCOR).
How are hedge funds trading Blucora Inc (NASDAQ:BCOR)?
At the end of the first quarter, a total of 19 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 46% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 12 hedge funds with a bullish position in BCOR a year ago. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
The largest stake in Blucora Inc (NASDAQ:BCOR) was held by Renaissance Technologies, which reported holding $31.4 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Simcoe Capital Management with a $13.3 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included D E Shaw, Red Cedar Management, and Two Sigma Advisors. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Red Cedar Management allocated the biggest weight to Blucora Inc (NASDAQ:BCOR), around 8.2% of its 13F portfolio. Simcoe Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 4.08 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to BCOR.
As aggregate interest increased, key money managers have jumped into Blucora Inc (NASDAQ:BCOR) headfirst. Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, assembled the most outsized position in Blucora Inc (NASDAQ:BCOR). Citadel Investment Group had $1.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ali Motamed’s Invenomic Capital Management also initiated a $0.6 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new BCOR positions are Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, Mika Toikka’s AlphaCrest Capital Management, and Greg Eisner’s Engineers Gate Manager.
Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Blucora Inc (NASDAQ:BCOR). We will take a look at Genfit SA (NASDAQ:GNFT), Great Southern Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:GSBC), Precigen, Inc. (NYSE:PGEN), and Ladder Capital Corp (NYSE:LADR). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to BCOR’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| GNFT | 2 | 4694 | 0 |
| GSBC | 12 | 29827 | 3 |
| PGEN | 13 | 36340 | 3 |
| LADR | 17 | 27489 | 6 |
| Average | 11 | 24588 | 3 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 11 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $25 million. That figure was $67 million in BCOR’s case. Ladder Capital Corp (NYSE:LADR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Genfit SA (NASDAQ:GNFT) is the least popular one with only 2 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Blucora Inc (NASDAQ:BCOR) is more popular among hedge funds. Our calculations showed that top 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.4% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10.1 percentage points. These stocks gained 13.4% in 2020 through June 22nd and still beat the market by 15.9 percentage points. Unfortunately BCOR wasn’t nearly as popular as these 10 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on BCOR were disappointed as the stock returned -3% during the second quarter (through June 22nd) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market in 2020.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
