Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Endeavour Silver Corp. (EXK)

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. We at Insider Monkey have plowed through 821 13F filings that hedge funds and well-known value investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of March 31st, a week after the market trough. In this article we look at what those investors think of Endeavour Silver Corp. (NYSE:EXK).

Is Endeavour Silver Corp. (NYSE:EXK) an excellent investment right now? Money managers are in a bearish mood. The number of long hedge fund bets shrunk by 1 lately. Our calculations also showed that EXK 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.

To the average investor there are tons of indicators stock traders use to appraise publicly traded companies. A pair of the most useful indicators are hedge fund and insider trading moves. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the top investment managers can outperform their index-focused peers by a healthy amount (see the details here).

Jim Simons Founder of Renaissance Technologies

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, legendary investor Bill Miller told investors to sell 7 extremely popular recession stocks last month. So, we went through his list and recommended another stock with 100% upside potential instead. 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 S&P 500 was trading at 3150 after realizing the coronavirus pandemic’s significance before most investors. Now let’s review the new hedge fund action surrounding Endeavour Silver Corp. (NYSE:EXK).

Hedge fund activity in Endeavour Silver Corp. (NYSE:EXK)

At the end of the first quarter, a total of 4 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -20% from the fourth quarter of 2019. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in EXK over the last 18 quarters. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were adding to their stakes significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Renaissance Technologies, holds the most valuable position in Endeavour Silver Corp. (NYSE:EXK). Renaissance Technologies has a $6.1 million position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Millennium Management, led by Israel Englander, holding a $1.7 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other peers that are bullish consist of Frederick DiSanto’s Ancora Advisors, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Ancora Advisors allocated the biggest weight to Endeavour Silver Corp. (NYSE:EXK), around 0.01% of its 13F portfolio. Renaissance Technologies is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.01 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to EXK.

We view hedge fund activity in the stock unfavorable, but in this case there was only a single hedge fund selling its entire position: Springbok Capital. One hedge fund selling its entire position doesn’t always imply a bearish intent. Theoretically a hedge fund may decide to sell a promising position in order to invest the proceeds in a more promising idea. However, we don’t think this is the case in this case because none of the 750+ hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey identified EXK as a viable investment and initiated a position in the stock.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Endeavour Silver Corp. (NYSE:EXK). These stocks are FVCBankcorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:FVCB), TCR2 Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:TCRR), Ames National Corporation (NASDAQ:ATLO), and BCB Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:BCBP). This group of stocks’ market values resemble EXK’s market value.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $15 million. That figure was $8 million in EXK’s case. TCR2 Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:TCRR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand FVCBankcorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:FVCB) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. Endeavour Silver Corp. (NYSE:EXK) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. 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 8.3% in 2020 through the end of May and still beat the market by 13.2 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on EXK as the stock returned 43.3% during the second quarter and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.