Billionaire hedge fund managers such as David Abrams, Steve Cohen and Stan Druckenmiller can generate millions or even billions of dollars every year by pinning down high-potential small-cap stocks and pouring cash into these candidates. Small-cap stocks are overlooked by most investors, brokerage houses, and financial services hubs, while the nearly unlimited research abilities of the big players within the hedge fund industry can easily identify the undervalued and high-potential stocks that reside the ignored corners of equity markets. There are numerous small-cap stocks that have turned out to be great winners, which is one of the main reasons the Insider Monkey team pays close attention to the hedge fund activity in relation to these stocks.
Glacier Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:GBCI) was in 17 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of June. GBCI investors should be aware of an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers of late. There were 12 hedge funds in our database with GBCI positions at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that GBCI isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (view the video below).
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
To most investors, hedge funds are viewed as worthless, old investment vehicles of the past. While there are over 8000 funds in operation at present, We choose to focus on the bigwigs of this group, approximately 750 funds. These money managers direct the majority of all hedge funds’ total capital, and by tailing their first-class picks, Insider Monkey has come up with a number of investment strategies that have historically outperformed the S&P 500 index. Insider Monkey’s flagship hedge fund strategy outrun the S&P 500 index by around 5 percentage points per annum since its inception in May 2014. We were able to generate large returns even by identifying short candidates. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 25.7% since February 2017 (through September 30th) even though the market was up more than 33% during the same period. We just shared a list of 10 short targets in our latest quarterly update .
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. Let’s take a peek at the fresh hedge fund action surrounding Glacier Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:GBCI).
How are hedge funds trading Glacier Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:GBCI)?
At Q2’s end, a total of 17 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 42% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 6 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in GBCI a year ago. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes significantly (or already accumulated large positions).
Among these funds, Fisher Asset Management held the most valuable stake in Glacier Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:GBCI), which was worth $27.8 million at the end of the second quarter. On the second spot was Balyasny Asset Management which amassed $8.5 million worth of shares. Moreover, GLG Partners, Millennium Management, and Forest Hill Capital were also bullish on Glacier Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:GBCI), allocating a large percentage of their portfolios to this stock.
Now, some big names have been driving this bullishness. Arrowstreet Capital, managed by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell, assembled the most valuable position in Glacier Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:GBCI). Arrowstreet Capital had $2.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Renaissance Technologies also made a $1.9 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Benjamin A. Smith’s Laurion Capital Management, Irving Kahn’s Kahn Brothers, and Michael Gelband’s ExodusPoint Capital.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Glacier Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:GBCI). We will take a look at Regal Beloit Corporation (NYSE:RBC), The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company (NASDAQ:GT), The Chemours Company (NYSE:CC), and Cornerstone OnDemand, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSOD). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble GBCI’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| RBC | 17 | 178292 | 0 |
| GT | 30 | 424551 | 11 |
| CC | 28 | 359067 | -2 |
| CSOD | 27 | 661147 | -2 |
| Average | 25.5 | 405764 | 1.75 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 25.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $406 million. That figure was $63 million in GBCI’s case. The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company (NASDAQ:GT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Regal Beloit Corporation (NYSE:RBC) is the least popular one with only 17 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Glacier Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:GBCI) is even less popular than RBC. Hedge funds dodged a bullet by taking a bearish stance towards GBCI. Our calculations showed that the top 20 most popular hedge fund stocks returned 24.4% in 2019 through September 30th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 4 percentage points. Unfortunately GBCI wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was very bearish); GBCI investors were disappointed as the stock returned 0.4% 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 so far in 2019.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
