Is Codorus Valley Bancorp, Inc. (CVLY) A Good Investment?

We at Insider Monkey have gone over 866 13F filings that hedge funds and prominent investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of March 31st. In this article, we look at what those funds think of Codorus Valley Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:CVLY) based on that data.

Hedge fund interest in Codorus Valley Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:CVLY) shares was flat at the end of last quarter. This is usually a negative indicator. Our calculations also showed that CVLY isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings). 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 Strattec Security Corp. (NASDAQ:STRT), Chiasma Inc (NASDAQ:CHMA), and Ramaco Resources, Inc. (NASDAQ:METC) to gather more data points.

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Phil Stone of Fourthstone LLC

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Do Hedge Funds Think CVLY Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At first quarter’s end, a total of 3 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 0% from the fourth quarter of 2020. On the other hand, there were a total of 4 hedge funds with a bullish position in CVLY a year ago. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

Among these funds, Fourthstone LLC held the most valuable stake in Codorus Valley Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:CVLY), which was worth $16 million at the end of the fourth quarter. On the second spot was Endicott Management which amassed $4.9 million worth of shares. Renaissance Technologies was also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Fourthstone LLC allocated the biggest weight to Codorus Valley Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:CVLY), around 7.93% of its 13F portfolio. Endicott Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 1.34 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to CVLY.

Earlier we told you that the aggregate hedge fund interest in the stock was unchanged and we view this as a negative development. Even though there weren’t any hedge funds dumping their holdings during the third quarter, there weren’t any hedge funds initiating brand new positions. This indicates that hedge funds, at the very best, perceive this stock as dead money and they haven’t identified any viable catalysts that can attract investor attention.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Codorus Valley Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:CVLY) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Strattec Security Corp. (NASDAQ:STRT), Chiasma Inc (NASDAQ:CHMA), Ramaco Resources, Inc. (NASDAQ:METC), 1st Constitution Bancorp (NASDAQ:FCCY), Richmond Mutual Bancorporation, Inc. (NASDAQ:RMBI), Genfit SA (NASDAQ:GNFT), and Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ:EVGN). This group of stocks’ market caps match CVLY’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 5.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $15 million. That figure was $24 million in CVLY’s case. Chiasma Inc (NASDAQ:CHMA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand 1st Constitution Bancorp (NASDAQ:FCCY) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Codorus Valley Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:CVLY) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for CVLY is 29.1. 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 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 17.2% in 2021 through June 11th and beat the market by 3.3 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on CVLY, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 7.5% since the end of Q1 (through June 11th) and outperformed the market.

Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.