At Insider Monkey, we pore over the filings of nearly 887 top investment firms every quarter, a process we have now completed for the latest reporting period. The data we’ve gathered as a result gives us access to a wealth of collective knowledge based on these firms’ portfolio holdings as of December 31st. In this article, we will use that wealth of knowledge to determine whether or not BOK Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:BOKF) makes for a good investment right now.
Is BOKF stock a buy? BOK Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:BOKF) was in 26 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of December. The all time high for this statistic is 22. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. BOKF investors should be aware of an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers in recent months. There were 21 hedge funds in our database with BOKF positions at the end of the third quarter. Our calculations also showed that BOKF isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q4 rankings).
Ric Dillon of Diamond Hill Capital
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Do Hedge Funds Think BOKF Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At fourth quarter’s end, a total of 26 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 24% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards BOKF over the last 22 quarters. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
The largest stake in BOK Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:BOKF) was held by Ariel Investments, which reported holding $168.6 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by Diamond Hill Capital with a $82.9 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Arrowstreet Capital, Royce & Associates, and Millennium Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Ariel Investments allocated the biggest weight to BOK Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:BOKF), around 1.9% of its 13F portfolio. EJF Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.48 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to BOKF.
As one would reasonably expect, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. Marshall Wace LLP, managed by Paul Marshall and Ian Wace, initiated the most outsized position in BOK Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:BOKF). Marshall Wace LLP had $4.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw also made a $4.3 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new BOKF investors: Greg Eisner’s Engineers Gate Manager, Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates, and Peter Muller’s PDT Partners.
Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as BOK Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:BOKF) but similarly valued. These stocks are Nexstar Media Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:NXST), Ashland Global Holdings Inc.. (NYSE:ASH), Flowserve Corporation (NYSE:FLS), Flowers Foods, Inc. (NYSE:FLO), Boyd Gaming Corporation (NYSE:BYD), Synovus Financial Corp. (NYSE:SNV), and Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation (NASDAQ:PPC). This group of stocks’ market caps match BOKF’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| NXST | 44 | 891159 | 3 |
| ASH | 38 | 1114289 | -8 |
| FLS | 21 | 148236 | 2 |
| FLO | 27 | 289063 | -3 |
| BYD | 28 | 275982 | 0 |
| SNV | 33 | 157470 | 8 |
| PPC | 17 | 80484 | -1 |
| Average | 29.7 | 422383 | 0.1 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 29.7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $422 million. That figure was $361 million in BOKF’s case. Nexstar Media Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:NXST) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation (NASDAQ:PPC) is the least popular one with only 17 bullish hedge fund positions. BOK Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:BOKF) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for BOKF is 56.7. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. Our calculations showed that top 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 81.2% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 26 percentage points. These stocks gained 12.3% in 2021 through April 19th and still beat the market by 0.9 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on BOKF as the stock returned 33.8% since the end of the fourth quarter (through 4/19) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
