Is P.H. Glatfelter Company (NYSE:GLT) a good bet right now? We like to analyze hedge fund sentiment before doing days of in-depth research. We do so because hedge funds and other elite investors have numerous Ivy league graduates, expert network advisers, and supply chain tipsters working or consulting for them. There is not a shortage of news stories covering failed hedge fund investments (for some reason media paid a ton of attention to Ackman’s gigantic JC Penney and Valeant failures) and it is a fact that hedge funds’ picks don’t beat the market 100% of the time, but their consensus picks have historically done very well and have outperformed the market after adjusting for risk.
P.H. Glatfelter Company (NYSE:GLT) was in 12 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2015. GLT shareholders have witnessed an increase in hedge fund interest in recent months. There were nine hedge funds in our database with GLT positions at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare GLT to other stocks including Speedway Motorsports, Inc. (NYSE:TRK), Bona Film Group Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:BONA), and Hecla Mining Company (NYSE:HL) to get a better sense of its popularity.
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In the financial world there are many methods investors can use to evaluate publicly traded companies. A duo of the best methods are hedge fund and insider trading activity. Hedge fund experts at Insider Monkey have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the elite hedge fund managers can outpace the market by a significant amount (see the details here).
With all of this in mind, we’re going to take a glance at the latest action surrounding P.H. Glatfelter Company (NYSE:GLT).
How have hedgies been trading P.H. Glatfelter Company (NYSE:GLT)?
Heading into Q4, a total of 12 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long in this stock, representing an increase of 33% from the previous quarter. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially.
According to publicly available hedge fund holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Martin Whitman’s Third Avenue Management has the most valuable position in P.H. Glatfelter Company (NYSE:GLT), worth close to $2.8 million, accounting for 0.1% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, which holds a $2.7 million position; less than 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining hedgies that hold long positions include Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies, David E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.
With general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, specific money managers have jumped into P.H. Glatfelter Company (NYSE:GLT) headfirst. Renaissance Technologies established the largest position in P.H. Glatfelter Company (NYSE:GLT). Renaissance Technologies had $2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors also initiated a $0.6 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are David Costen Haley’s HBK Investments, George Hall’s Clinton Group, and Roger Ibbotson’s Zebra Capital Management.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to P.H. Glatfelter Company (NYSE:GLT). These stocks are Speedway Motorsports, Inc. (NYSE:TRK), Bona Film Group Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:BONA), Hecla Mining Company (NYSE:HL), and Cash America International, Inc. (NYSE:CSH). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to GLT’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| TRK | 15 | 17495 | 5 |
| BONA | 7 | 17491 | 2 |
| HL | 7 | 13605 | -4 |
| CSH | 13 | 63637 | -2 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 10.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $28 million, while that figure was just $11 million for P.H. Glatfelter. Speedway Motorsports, Inc. (NYSE:TRK) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Bona Film Group Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:BONA) is the least popular one with only seven bullish hedge fund positions. P.H. Glatfelter Company (NYSE:GLT) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on, which is not the case here.
