Is IBERIABANK Corporation (NASDAQ:IBKC) a buy, sell, or hold? Hedge funds are becoming more confident. The number of long hedge fund positions inched up by 2 recently.
In the eyes of most traders, hedge funds are perceived as underperforming, outdated investment tools of years past. While there are greater than 8000 funds in operation today, we at Insider Monkey choose to focus on the crème de la crème of this group, about 450 funds. It is estimated that this group controls the lion’s share of all hedge funds’ total capital, and by watching their best stock picks, we have unsheathed a few investment strategies that have historically outpaced Mr. Market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per annum for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve began to sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have trumped the S&P 500 index by 23.3 percentage points in 8 months (see all of our picks from August).
Just as integral, positive insider trading sentiment is another way to parse down the world of equities. Just as you’d expect, there are a number of reasons for a bullish insider to drop shares of his or her company, but only one, very simple reason why they would initiate a purchase. Many academic studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this strategy if “monkeys” know where to look (learn more here).
Keeping this in mind, we’re going to take a gander at the latest action regarding IBERIABANK Corporation (NASDAQ:IBKC).
What have hedge funds been doing with IBERIABANK Corporation (NASDAQ:IBKC)?
Heading into Q2, a total of 9 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 29% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings substantially.
As aggregate interest increased, key money managers have jumped into IBERIABANK Corporation (NASDAQ:IBKC) headfirst. Select Equity Group, managed by Robert Joseph Caruso, initiated the biggest position in IBERIABANK Corporation (NASDAQ:IBKC). Select Equity Group had 6.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Israel Englander’s Millennium Management also initiated a $4 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new IBKC positions are Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors, and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw.
What do corporate executives and insiders think about IBERIABANK Corporation (NASDAQ:IBKC)?
Insider purchases made by high-level executives is best served when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the latest 180-day time frame, IBERIABANK Corporation (NASDAQ:IBKC) has experienced 1 unique insiders buying, and 3 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
Let’s also review hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to IBERIABANK Corporation (NASDAQ:IBKC). These stocks are EverBank Financial Corp (NYSE:EVER), F.N.B. Corp (NYSE:FNB), Trustmark Corp (NASDAQ:TRMK), Bank Of The Ozarks Inc (NASDAQ:OZRK), and BancorpSouth, Inc. (NYSE:BXS). All of these stocks are in the regional – southeast banks industry and their market caps are closest to IBKC’s market cap.
