How TriCo Bancshares (TCBK) Compares to Its Peers Using This Key Metric

Hedge funds and other investment firms run by legendary investors like Israel Englander and Ray Dalio are entrusted to manage billions of dollars of accredited investors’ money because they are without peer in the resources they use to identify the best investments for their chosen investment horizon. Moreover, they are more willing to invest a greater amount of their resources in small-cap stocks than big brokerage houses, and this is often where they generate their outperformance, which is why we pay particular attention to their best ideas in this space.

Is TriCo Bancshares (NASDAQ:TCBK) a buy, sell, or hold? Prominent investors are really betting on the stock. The number of long hedge fund positions improved by 1 lately. TCBK was in 7 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2016. There were 6 hedge funds in our database with TCBK holdings at the end of the second quarter. The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as Green Plains Partners LP (NASDAQ:GPP), Crocs, Inc. (NASDAQ:CROX), and CTS Corporation (NYSE:CTS) to gather more data points.

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How have hedgies been trading TriCo Bancshares (NASDAQ:TCBK)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 7 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a 17% increase from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 10 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in TCBK heading into this year, so hedge fund ownership of the stock is still down in 2016. So, let’s review 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, Renaissance Technologies, one of the largest hedge funds in the world, has the biggest position in TriCo Bancshares (NASDAQ:TCBK), worth close to $16.6 million. The second most bullish fund manager is Matthew Lindenbaum of Basswood Capital, with a $3.7 million position. Remaining peers with similar optimism contain Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors. 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-micro-cap stocks.

Now, key money managers were breaking ground themselves. Citadel Investment Group, led by Ken Griffin, assembled the most outsized position in TriCo Bancshares (NASDAQ:TCBK). Citadel Investment Group had $0.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to TriCo Bancshares (NASDAQ:TCBK). We will take a look at Green Plains Partners LP (NASDAQ:GPP), Crocs, Inc. (NASDAQ:CROX), CTS Corporation (NYSE:CTS), and Nuveen Floating Rate Income Fund (NYSE:JFR). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to TCBK’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $50 million. That figure was $28 million in TCBK’s case. Crocs, Inc. (NASDAQ:CROX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand CTS Corporation (NYSE:CTS) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. TriCo Bancshares (NASDAQ:TCBK) 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 CROX might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: None