After several tireless days we have finished crunching the numbers from nearly 750 13F filings issued by the elite hedge funds and other investment firms that we track at Insider Monkey, which disclosed those firms’ equity portfolios as of June 28. The results of that effort will be put on display in this article, as we share valuable insight into the smart money sentiment towards Balchem Corporation (NASDAQ:BCPC).
Is Balchem Corporation (NASDAQ:BCPC) a buy, sell, or hold? The best stock pickers are in an optimistic mood. The number of long hedge fund positions went up by 2 lately. Our calculations also showed that BCPC isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (view the video below). BCPC was in 9 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of June. There were 7 hedge funds in our database with BCPC positions at the end of the previous quarter.
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
To the average investor there are many signals shareholders put to use to appraise their stock investments. A duo of the most underrated signals are hedge fund and insider trading moves. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best investment managers can outclass the broader indices by a healthy margin (see the details here).
Unlike former hedge manager, Dr. Steve Sjuggerud, who is convinced Dow will soar past 40000, our long-short investment strategy doesn’t rely on bull markets to deliver double digit returns. We only rely on hedge fund buy/sell signals. We’re going to review the latest hedge fund action regarding Balchem Corporation (NASDAQ:BCPC).
What have hedge funds been doing with Balchem Corporation (NASDAQ:BCPC)?
At Q2’s end, a total of 9 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 29% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 9 hedge funds with a bullish position in BCPC a year ago. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).
According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Royce & Associates, managed by Chuck Royce, holds the most valuable position in Balchem Corporation (NASDAQ:BCPC). Royce & Associates has a $26.8 million position in the stock, comprising 0.2% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Renaissance Technologies holding a $24.3 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other professional money managers that hold long positions comprise Murray Stahl’s Horizon Asset Management, Noam Gottesman’s GLG Partners and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.
As one would reasonably expect, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Balyasny Asset Management, managed by Dmitry Balyasny, created the biggest position in Balchem Corporation (NASDAQ:BCPC). Balyasny Asset Management had $0.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management also made a $0 million investment in the stock during the quarter.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Balchem Corporation (NASDAQ:BCPC) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Black Stone Minerals LP (NYSE:BSM), Neogen Corporation (NASDAQ:NEOG), Thor Industries, Inc. (NYSE:THO), and AMC Networks Inc (NASDAQ:AMCX). This group of stocks’ market values match BCPC’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| BSM | 7 | 11439 | 2 |
| NEOG | 12 | 28955 | 0 |
| THO | 19 | 115885 | -1 |
| AMCX | 19 | 306968 | -1 |
| Average | 14.25 | 115812 | 0 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 14.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $116 million. That figure was $64 million in BCPC’s case. Thor Industries, Inc. (NYSE:THO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Black Stone Minerals LP (NYSE:BSM) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Balchem Corporation (NASDAQ:BCPC) 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. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 24.4% in 2019 through September 30th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 4 percentage points. Unfortunately BCPC wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); BCPC investors were disappointed as the stock returned -0.8% during the third quarter 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 in 2019.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
