Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Synchronoss Technologies, Inc. (SNCR)

Many investors, including Carl Icahn or Stan Druckenmiller, have been saying for a while now that the current market is overvalued due to a low interest rate environment that leads to companies swapping their equity for debt and focusing mostly on short-term performance such as beating the quarterly earnings estimates. In the third quarter, many investors lost money due to unpredictable events such as the concerns over Valeant’s drug pricing policy that led to an overall drop among pharma stocks. Nevertheless, many of the stocks that tanked in the third quarter still sport strong fundamentals and their decline was more related to the general market sentiment rather than their individual performance and hedge funds kept their bullish stance. In this article we will find out how hedge fund sentiment to Synchronoss Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNCR) changed recently.

Synchronoss Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNCR) shares haven’t seen a lot of action during the third quarter. Overall, hedge fund sentiment was unchanged. The stock was in 21 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. At the end of this article we will also compare SNCR to other stocks including Greatbatch Inc (NYSE:GB), Concordia Healthcare Corp (NASDAQ:CXRX), and Fidelity & Guaranty Life (NYSE:FGL) to get a better sense of its popularity.

Now, we’re going to take a peek at the recent action regarding Synchronoss Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNCR).

How have hedgies been trading Synchronoss Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNCR)?

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Lee Munder Capital Group, managed by Lee Munder, holds the most valuable position in Synchronoss Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNCR). Lee Munder Capital Group has a $55 million position in the stock, comprising 1.2% of its 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is Millennium Management, managed by Israel Englander, which holds a $10.8 million position; the fund has less than 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining hedge funds and institutional investors with similar optimism comprise Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management, Peter Muller’s PDT Partners and Jerome Debs’s Bodri Capital Management.

It’s worth mentioning that Carl Tiedemann and Michael Tiedemann’s TIG Advisors dropped the biggest stake of all the hedgies monitored by Insider Monkey, comprising about $21.6 million in stock, and Matthew Halbower’s Pentwater Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $1.8 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Synchronoss Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNCR) but similarly valued. These stocks are Greatbatch Inc (NYSE:GB), Concordia Healthcare Corp (NASDAQ:CXRX), Fidelity & Guaranty Life (NYSE:FGL), and Alder Biopharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ALDR). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to SNCR’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 17.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $167 million. That figure was $97 million in SNCR’s case. Alder Biopharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ALDR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Fidelity & Guaranty Life (NYSE:FGL) is the least popular one with only 11 bullish hedge fund positions. Synchronoss Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNCR) 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. In this regard ALDR might be a better candidate to consider a long position.