A whopping number of 13F filings filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been processed by Insider Monkey so that individual investors can look at the overall hedge fund sentiment towards the stocks included in their watchlists. These freshly-submitted public filings disclose money managers’ equity positions as of the end of the three-month period that ended June 28, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment on Cryolife Inc (NYSE:CRY).
Cryolife Inc (NYSE:CRY) investors should pay attention to an increase in enthusiasm from smart money in recent months. CRY was in 15 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the second quarter of 2019. There were 13 hedge funds in our database with CRY holdings at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that CRY isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (see the video below).
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
At the moment there are a multitude of tools market participants have at their disposal to assess stocks. A couple of the best tools are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the elite fund managers can outperform their index-focused peers by a healthy margin (see the details here).
Unlike former hedge manager, Dr. Steve Sjuggerud, 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 look at the fresh hedge fund action encompassing Cryolife Inc (NYSE:CRY).
What have hedge funds been doing with Cryolife Inc (NYSE:CRY)?
At the end of the second quarter, a total of 15 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 15% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 9 hedge funds with a bullish position in CRY a year ago. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in Cryolife Inc (NYSE:CRY) was held by Royce & Associates, which reported holding $13.8 million worth of stock at the end of March. It was followed by Millennium Management with a $11.2 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Point72 Asset Management, Renaissance Technologies, and Adage Capital Management.
Now, specific money managers have jumped into Cryolife Inc (NYSE:CRY) headfirst. Point72 Asset Management, managed by Steve Cohen, created the most valuable position in Cryolife Inc (NYSE:CRY). Point72 Asset Management had $4.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management also initiated a $3 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP, Efrem Kamen’s Pura Vida Investments, and David Harding’s Winton Capital Management.
Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Cryolife Inc (NYSE:CRY) but similarly valued. These stocks are National Bank Holdings Corporation (NYSE:NBHC), Select Energy Services, Inc. (NYSE:WTTR), Criteo SA (NASDAQ:CRTO), and Neenah, Inc. (NYSE:NP). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to CRY’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| NBHC | 10 | 90981 | 2 |
| WTTR | 11 | 41118 | -4 |
| CRTO | 9 | 150438 | 0 |
| NP | 7 | 11350 | 0 |
| Average | 9.25 | 73472 | -0.5 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 9.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $73 million. That figure was $48 million in CRY’s case. Select Energy Services, Inc. (NYSE:WTTR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Neenah, Inc. (NYSE:NP) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Cryolife Inc (NYSE:CRY) is more popular among hedge funds. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 24.4% in 2019 through September 30th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 4 percentage points. Unfortunately CRY wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on CRY were disappointed as the stock returned -9.3% during the third quarter and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds as many of these stocks already outperformed the market in Q3.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
