Insider Monkey has processed numerous 13F filings of hedge funds and successful value investors to create an extensive database of hedge fund holdings. The 13F filings show the hedge funds’ and successful investors’ positions as of the end of the third quarter. You can find articles about an individual hedge fund’s trades on numerous financial news websites. However, in this article we will take a look at their collective moves over the last 4 years and analyze what the smart money thinks of Howard Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:HBMD) based on that data.
Howard Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:HBMD) has experienced an increase in enthusiasm from smart money of late. HBMD was in 3 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 2 hedge funds in our database with HBMD positions at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that HBMD isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
If you’d ask most shareholders, hedge funds are viewed as slow, outdated investment tools of the past. While there are over 8000 funds in operation at present, Our experts look at the crème de la crème of this club, approximately 750 funds. It is estimated that this group of investors shepherd the majority of the hedge fund industry’s total asset base, and by monitoring their matchless stock picks, Insider Monkey has unearthed several investment strategies that have historically beaten the broader indices. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points per year since its inception in May 2014. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 27.8% since February 2017 (through November 21st) even though the market was up more than 39% during the same period. We just shared a list of 7 short targets in our latest quarterly update .
Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies
Unlike the largest US hedge funds that are convinced Dow will soar past 40,000 or the world’s most bearish hedge fund that’s more convinced than ever that a crash is coming, our long-short investment strategy doesn’t rely on bull or bear markets to deliver double digit returns. We only rely on the best performing hedge funds‘ buy/sell signals. Let’s take a look at the latest hedge fund action regarding Howard Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:HBMD).
How have hedgies been trading Howard Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:HBMD)?
At the end of the third quarter, a total of 3 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 50% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 3 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in HBMD a year ago. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).
When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Anton Schutz’s Mendon Capital Advisors has the most valuable position in Howard Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:HBMD), worth close to $12.6 million, corresponding to 2.1% of its total 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is Elizabeth Park Capital Management, managed by Fred Cummings, which holds a $3.3 million position; the fund has 1.3% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Mendon Capital Advisors allocated the biggest weight to Howard Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:HBMD), around 2.13% of its portfolio. Elizabeth Park Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 1.28 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to HBMD.
As industrywide interest jumped, key hedge funds were breaking ground themselves. Elizabeth Park Capital Management, managed by Fred Cummings, assembled the most valuable position in Howard Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:HBMD). Elizabeth Park Capital Management had $3.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Howard Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:HBMD). We will take a look at Red River Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:RRBI), Landec Corporation (NASDAQ:LNDC), Telaria, Inc. (NYSE:TLRA), and Noble Corporation plc (NYSE:NE). This group of stocks’ market values match HBMD’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| RRBI | 3 | 5155 | 0 |
| LNDC | 13 | 46350 | 2 |
| TLRA | 17 | 47266 | 3 |
| NE | 13 | 48356 | -3 |
| Average | 11.5 | 36782 | 0.5 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 11.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $37 million. That figure was $17 million in HBMD’s case. Telaria, Inc. (NYSE:TLRA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Red River Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:RRBI) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Howard Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:HBMD) is even less popular than RRBI. Hedge funds dodged a bullet by taking a bearish stance towards HBMD. Our calculations showed that the top 20 most popular hedge fund stocks returned 34.7% in 2019 through November 22nd and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 8.5 percentage points. Unfortunately HBMD wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was very bearish); HBMD investors were disappointed as the stock returned -0.4% during the fourth quarter (through 11/22) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds as 70 percent of these stocks already outperformed the market so far in Q4.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
