Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Oriental Financial Group Inc. (OFG)

Oriental Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:OFG) was in 8 hedge funds’ portfolio at the end of March. OFG has seen a decrease in hedge fund interest recently. There were 11 hedge funds in our database with OFG holdings at the end of the previous quarter.

To the average investor, there are a multitude of indicators market participants can use to watch their holdings. A duo of the most useful are hedge fund and insider trading movement. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite fund managers can beat their index-focused peers by a superb amount (see just how much).

Just as beneficial, bullish insider trading sentiment is another way to break down the investments you’re interested in. Just as you’d expect, there are many stimuli for an upper level exec to downsize shares of his or her company, but only one, very obvious reason why they would buy. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this tactic if shareholders know what to do (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, we’re going to take a gander at the latest action encompassing Oriental Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:OFG).

How have hedgies been trading Oriental Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:OFG)?

In preparation for this quarter, a total of 8 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of -27% from the first quarter. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes substantially.

Of the funds we track, Ken Gray and Steve Walsh’s Bryn Mawr Capital had the largest position in Oriental Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:OFG), worth close to $18.9 million, comprising 1.4% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Israel Englander of Millennium Management, with a $9.3 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining peers that are bullish include Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, Matthew Lindenbaum’s Basswood Capital and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw.

Since Oriental Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:OFG) has experienced a declination in interest from the smart money, it’s safe to say that there was a specific group of hedge funds who were dropping their positions entirely heading into Q2. Intriguingly, Tom Brown’s Second Curve Capital dumped the biggest stake of all the hedgies we key on, valued at close to $19.8 million in stock.. Malcolm Fairbairn’s fund, Ascend Capital, also dumped its stock, about $6.2 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 3 funds heading into Q2.

What have insiders been doing with Oriental Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:OFG)?

Insider purchases made by high-level executives is most useful when the company in question has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest 180-day time period, Oriental Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:OFG) has experienced 3 unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also examine hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Oriental Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:OFG). These stocks are TCF Financial Corporation (NYSE:TCB), First Connecticut Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:FBNK), National Bank of Greece (ADR) (NYSE:NBG), Home Bancshares Inc (NASDAQ:HOMB), and State Bank Financial Corp (NASDAQ:STBZ). This group of stocks are in the money center banks industry and their market caps are closest to OFG’s market cap.

With the results demonstrated by Insider Monkey’s tactics, retail investors must always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Oriental Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:OFG) shareholders fit into this picture quite nicely.

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