The 700+ hedge funds and famous money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the second quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of June 28. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund portfolios. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards BOK Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:BOKF).
BOK Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:BOKF) has experienced an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds lately. BOKF was in 19 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of June. There were 16 hedge funds in our database with BOKF holdings at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that BOKF isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research has shown that hedge funds’ small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the market by 40 percentage points since May 2014 through May 30, 2019 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that underperformed the market by 10 percentage points annually between 2006 and 2017. Interestingly the margin of underperformance of these stocks has been increasing in recent years. Investors who are long the market and short these stocks would have returned more than 27% annually between 2015 and 2017. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 in our quarterly newsletter.
Unlike this former hedge fund manager who is convinced Dow will soar past 40000, our long-short investment strategy doesn’t rely on bull markets to deliver double digit returns. We only rely on hedge fund buy/sell signals. We’re going to take a peek at the fresh hedge fund action regarding BOK Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:BOKF).
How are hedge funds trading BOK Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:BOKF)?
Heading into the third quarter of 2019, a total of 19 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 19% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 14 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in BOKF a year ago. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
More specifically, Ariel Investments was the largest shareholder of BOK Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:BOKF), with a stake worth $72.4 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing Ariel Investments was Diamond Hill Capital, which amassed a stake valued at $46.3 million. Royce & Associates, Renaissance Technologies, and Millennium Management were also very fond of the stock, giving the stock large weights in their portfolios.
As industrywide interest jumped, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Marshall Wace LLP, managed by Paul Marshall and Ian Wace, established the largest position in BOK Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:BOKF). Marshall Wace LLP had $2.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Noam Gottesman’s GLG Partners also made a $1.4 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new BOKF investors: D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Benjamin A. Smith’s Laurion Capital Management, and Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as BOK Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:BOKF) but similarly valued. These stocks are Paylocity Holding Corporation (NASDAQ:PCTY), JBG SMITH Properties (NYSE:JBGS), Huazhu Group Limited (NASDAQ:HTHT), and Toll Brothers Inc (NYSE:TOL). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to BOKF’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCTY | 28 | 213289 | 4 |
| JBGS | 17 | 291239 | 0 |
| HTHT | 14 | 164741 | 0 |
| TOL | 20 | 368947 | -8 |
| Average | 19.75 | 259554 | -1 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 19.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $260 million. That figure was $186 million in BOKF’s case. Paylocity Holding Corporation (NASDAQ:PCTY) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Huazhu Group Limited (NASDAQ:HTHT) is the least popular one with only 14 bullish hedge fund positions. BOK Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:BOKF) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks (see the video below) among hedge funds returned 24.4% in 2019 through September 30th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 4 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on BOKF, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 5.5% during the third quarter and outperformed the market.
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
