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 have processed the filings of the more than 817 world-class investment firms that we track and now have access to the collective wisdom contained in these filings, which are based on their September 30 holdings, data that is available nowhere else. Should you consider Citizens & Northern Corporation (NASDAQ:CZNC) for your portfolio? We’ll look to this invaluable collective wisdom for the answer.
Citizens & Northern Corporation (NASDAQ:CZNC) has seen an increase in enthusiasm from smart money of late. Citizens & Northern Corporation (NASDAQ:CZNC) was in 4 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2020. The all time high for this statistics is 3. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. There were 2 hedge funds in our database with CZNC holdings at the end of June. Our calculations also showed that CZNC isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).
Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research has shown that hedge funds’ small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by 66 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that underperformed the market by 10 percentage points annually between 2006 and 2017. Interestingly the margin of underperformance of these stocks has been increasing in recent years. Investors who are long the market and short these stocks would have returned more than 27% annually between 2015 and 2017. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 in our quarterly newsletter.
Ken Griffin of Citadel Investment Group
At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 10 most profitable companies in the world to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. Now we’re going to take a look at the fresh hedge fund action encompassing Citizens & Northern Corporation (NASDAQ:CZNC).
What does smart money think about Citizens & Northern Corporation (NASDAQ:CZNC)?
At Q3’s end, a total of 4 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 100% from the second quarter of 2020. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards CZNC over the last 21 quarters. So, let’s examine 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, Renaissance Technologies, holds the biggest position in Citizens & Northern Corporation (NASDAQ:CZNC). Renaissance Technologies has a $2.6 million position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio. On Renaissance Technologies’s heels is Minerva Advisors, led by David P. Cohen, holding a $0.7 million position; the fund has 0.5% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other members of the smart money with similar optimism comprise Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and . In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Minerva Advisors allocated the biggest weight to Citizens & Northern Corporation (NASDAQ:CZNC), around 0.47% of its 13F portfolio. Renaissance Technologies is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 0.0026 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to CZNC.
As aggregate interest increased, some big names have jumped into Citizens & Northern Corporation (NASDAQ:CZNC) headfirst. Millennium Management, managed by Israel Englander, initiated the biggest position in Citizens & Northern Corporation (NASDAQ:CZNC). Millennium Management had $0.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group also initiated a $0.2 million position during the quarter.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Citizens & Northern Corporation (NASDAQ:CZNC). We will take a look at Uxin Limited (NASDAQ:UXIN), Tellurian Inc. (NASDAQ:TELL), International Tower Hill Mines Ltd (NYSE:THM), Applied Optoelectronics Inc (NASDAQ:AAOI), Graybug Vision, Inc. (NASDAQ:GRAY), Sierra Bancorp (NASDAQ:BSRR), and W&T Offshore, Inc. (NYSE:WTI). This group of stocks’ market values match CZNC’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| UXIN | 5 | 2779 | 3 |
| TELL | 3 | 2596 | -1 |
| THM | 5 | 171654 | 1 |
| AAOI | 9 | 12567 | -3 |
| GRAY | 10 | 136937 | 10 |
| BSRR | 9 | 9163 | 0 |
| WTI | 8 | 12428 | -7 |
| Average | 7 | 49732 | 0.4 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $50 million. That figure was $4 million in CZNC’s case. Graybug Vision, Inc. (NASDAQ:GRAY) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Tellurian Inc. (NASDAQ:TELL) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. Citizens & Northern Corporation (NASDAQ:CZNC) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for CZNC is 44.1. 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 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.3% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10 percentage points. These stocks gained 30.7% in 2020 through November 27th and still beat the market by 16.1 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on CZNC as the stock returned 17% since the end of the third quarter (through 11/27) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
