The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. We at Insider Monkey have plowed through 752 13F filings that hedge funds and well-known value investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of September 30th. In this article we look at what those investors think of Hometrust Bancshares Inc (NASDAQ:HTBI).
Hometrust Bancshares Inc (NASDAQ:HTBI) investors should pay attention to an increase in hedge fund interest lately. Our calculations also showed that HTBI isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video below for Q2 rankings).
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
In the financial world there are a large number of tools investors have at their disposal to grade stocks. A pair of the most under-the-radar tools are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outperform the broader indices by a solid amount. Insider Monkey’s flagship best performing hedge funds strategy returned 91% since May 2014 and outperformed the Russell 2000 ETFs by nearly 40 percentage points. Our short strategy outperformed the S&P 500 short ETFs by 20 percentage points annually (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies
We leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example Europe is set to become the world’s largest cannabis market, so we check out this European marijuana stock pitch. One of the most bullish analysts in America just put his money where his mouth is. He says, “I’m investing more today than I did back in early 2009.” So we check out his pitch. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. We also rely on the best performing hedge funds‘ buy/sell signals. We’re going to go over the recent hedge fund action regarding Hometrust Bancshares Inc (NASDAQ:HTBI).
How are hedge funds trading Hometrust Bancshares Inc (NASDAQ:HTBI)?
Heading into the fourth quarter of 2019, a total of 10 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 11% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards HTBI over the last 17 quarters. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Ian Simm’s Impax Asset Management has the number one position in Hometrust Bancshares Inc (NASDAQ:HTBI), worth close to $23.8 million, amounting to 0.3% of its total 13F portfolio. On Impax Asset Management’s heels is Renaissance Technologies, with a $21.3 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other peers that hold long positions include Gregg J. Powers’s Private Capital Management, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates and John D. Gillespie’s Prospector Partners. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Private Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Hometrust Bancshares Inc (NASDAQ:HTBI), around 2.46% of its 13F portfolio. Prospector Partners is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.36 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to HTBI.
With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, some big names have jumped into Hometrust Bancshares Inc (NASDAQ:HTBI) headfirst. Winton Capital Management, managed by David Harding, assembled the biggest position in Hometrust Bancshares Inc (NASDAQ:HTBI). Winton Capital Management had $1.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors also made a $0.3 million investment in the stock during the quarter.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Hometrust Bancshares Inc (NASDAQ:HTBI). We will take a look at Vectrus Inc (NYSE:VEC), Mechel OAO (NYSE:MTL), Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. (NASDAQ:KNSA), and Star Gas Partners, L.P. (NYSE:SGU). This group of stocks’ market caps match HTBI’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| VEC | 15 | 49982 | 3 |
| MTL | 2 | 1373 | 0 |
| KNSA | 8 | 66257 | -1 |
| SGU | 8 | 81132 | 0 |
| Average | 8.25 | 49686 | 0.5 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 8.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $50 million. That figure was $69 million in HTBI’s case. Vectrus Inc (NYSE:VEC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Mechel OAO (NYSE:MTL) is the least popular one with only 2 bullish hedge fund positions. Hometrust Bancshares Inc (NASDAQ:HTBI) 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. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 37.4% in 2019 through the end of November and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 9.9 percentage points. Unfortunately HTBI wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on HTBI were disappointed as the stock returned 0.5% during the fourth quarter (through the end of November) 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 many of these stocks already outperformed the market so far this year.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
