Is Computer Task Group (CTG) A Good Stock To Buy?

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 Computer Task Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTG) for your portfolio? We’ll look to this invaluable collective wisdom for the answer.

Is Computer Task Group (CTG) a good stock to buy now? CTG shares haven’t seen a lot of action during the second quarter. Overall, hedge fund sentiment was unchanged. The stock was in 5 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. Our calculations also showed that CTG 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). At the end of this article we will also compare CTG to other stocks including Core Molding Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:CMT), Drive Shack Inc. (NYSE:DS), and Advanced Emissions Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADES) to get a better sense of its popularity.

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

Why do we pay any attention at all to hedge fund sentiment? Our research has shown that a select group of hedge fund holdings 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’ll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 13% through November 17th. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

Peter Rathjens of Arrowstreet Capital

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 15 best blue chip stocks 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. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our website. With all of this in mind let’s view the key hedge fund action surrounding Computer Task Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTG).

How are hedge funds trading Computer Task Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTG)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 5 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 0% from the second quarter of 2020. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards CTG over the last 21 quarters. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

The largest stake in Computer Task Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTG) was held by Minerva Advisors, which reported holding $5.8 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Renaissance Technologies with a $5.2 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Ancora Advisors, Arrowstreet Capital, and Royce & Associates. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Minerva Advisors allocated the biggest weight to Computer Task Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTG), around 3.89% of its 13F portfolio. Ancora Advisors is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 0.02 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to CTG.

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 go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Computer Task Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTG) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Core Molding Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:CMT), Drive Shack Inc. (NYSE:DS), Advanced Emissions Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADES), Idera Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:IDRA), Rockwell Medical Inc (NASDAQ:RMTI), First Eagle Alternative Capital BDC, Inc. (NASDAQ:FCRD), and Galmed Pharmaceuticals Ltd (NASDAQ:GLMD). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to CTG’s market valuation.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

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 $10 million. That figure was $12 million in CTG’s case. Drive Shack Inc. (NYSE:DS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Core Molding Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:CMT) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Computer Task Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTG) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for CTG is 35.3. 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 CTG as the stock returned 35% since the end of the third quarter (through 11/27) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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