The successful funds run by legendary investors such as Dan Loeb and David Tepper make hundreds of millions of dollars for themselves and their investors by spending enormous resources doing research on small cap stocks that big investment banks don’t follow. Because of their pay structures, they have strong incentive to do the research necessary to beat the market. That’s why we pay close attention to what they think in small cap stocks. In this article, we take a closer look at Southwest Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:OKSB) from the perspective of those successful funds.
Southwest Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:OKSB) was included in the 13F portfolios of seven investors from our database at the end of September. The company registered an increase in enthusiasm from smart money last quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare OKSB to other stocks including Pennantpark Floating Rate Capital Ltd (NASDAQ:PFLT), Pier 1 Imports, Inc. (NYSE:PIR), and Computer Programs & Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CPSI) to get a better sense of its popularity.
Follow Southwest Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:OKSB)
Follow Southwest Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:OKSB)
At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.
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Keeping this in mind, let’s go over the new action encompassing Southwest Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:OKSB).
Hedge fund activity in Southwest Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:OKSB)
At Q3’s end, a total of seven funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, compared to five funds at the end of June. On the other hand, there were seven hedge funds with a bullish position in OKSB at the beginning of this year. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Polaris Capital Management, led by Bernard Horn, holds the number one position in Southwest Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:OKSB). Polaris Capital Management has a $14 million position in the stock, comprising 1.1% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies, with a $4.5 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other peers with similar optimism comprise Amy Minella’s Cardinal Capital, D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.
As industrywide interest jumped, some big names were breaking ground themselves. Millennium Management, one of the 10 largest hedge funds in the world, initiated the most valuable position in Southwest Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:OKSB). Millennium Management had $0.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter.
Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Southwest Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:OKSB) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Pennantpark Floating Rate Capital Ltd (NASDAQ:PFLT), Pier 1 Imports, Inc. (NYSE:PIR), Computer Programs & Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CPSI), and Heritage Commerce Corp. (NASDAQ:HTBK). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble OKSB’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| PFLT | 6 | 10058 | 1 |
| PIR | 18 | 77201 | -4 |
| CPSI | 7 | 36718 | -6 |
| HTBK | 7 | 11636 | -1 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 10 funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $34 million. That figure was $23 million in OKSB’s case. Pier 1 Imports, Inc. (NYSE:PIR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Pennantpark Floating Rate Capital Ltd (NASDAQ:PFLT) is the least popular one with only six funds holding long positions. Southwest Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:OKSB) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard PIR might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.
Disclosure: none
