We at Insider Monkey have gone over 873 13F filings that hedge funds and prominent investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of June 30th. In this article, we look at what those funds think of Central Valley Community Bancorp (NASDAQ:CVCY) based on that data.
Central Valley Community Bancorp (NASDAQ:CVCY) was in 10 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of June. The all time high for this statistic is 7. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. CVCY investors should pay attention to an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds recently. There were 3 hedge funds in our database with CVCY holdings at the end of March. Our calculations also showed that CVCY 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.
Emanuel Friedman of EJF Capital
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Do Hedge Funds Think CVCY Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At the end of the second quarter, a total of 10 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 233% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 5 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in CVCY a year ago. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in Central Valley Community Bancorp (NASDAQ:CVCY) was held by Renaissance Technologies, which reported holding $2.7 million worth of stock at the end of June. It was followed by EJF Capital with a $2.3 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Millennium Management, Prospector Partners, and Basswood Capital. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Prospector Partners allocated the biggest weight to Central Valley Community Bancorp (NASDAQ:CVCY), around 0.22% of its 13F portfolio. EJF Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.21 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to CVCY.
As aggregate interest increased, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. EJF Capital, managed by Emanuel J. Friedman, assembled the most valuable position in Central Valley Community Bancorp (NASDAQ:CVCY). EJF Capital had $2.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Matthew Lindenbaum’s Basswood Capital also made a $1.6 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new CVCY positions are Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP, Phil Stone’s Fourthstone LLC, and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Central Valley Community Bancorp (NASDAQ:CVCY) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. (NYSE:NAK), HireQuest, Inc. (NASDAQ:HQI), eMagin Corporation (NYSE:EMAN), Immutep Limited (NASDAQ:IMMP), SGOCO Group Ltd (NASDAQ:SGOC), Taiwan Liposome Company, Ltd. (NASDAQ:TLC), and Cardiff Oncology, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRDF). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to CVCY’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| NAK | 6 | 14337 | -1 |
| HQI | 2 | 4979 | -1 |
| EMAN | 6 | 4051 | -3 |
| IMMP | 4 | 6613 | 0 |
| SGOC | 1 | 158 | -2 |
| TLC | 1 | 71 | 0 |
| CRDF | 12 | 34110 | -1 |
| Average | 4.6 | 9188 | -1.1 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 4.6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $9 million. That figure was $13 million in CVCY’s case. Cardiff Oncology, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRDF) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand SGOCO Group Ltd (NASDAQ:SGOC) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Central Valley Community Bancorp (NASDAQ:CVCY) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for CVCY is 80.9. 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. Hedge funds were also right about betting on CVCY as the stock returned 8.1% since the end of Q2 (through 9/27) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
