Is EPAC A Good Stock To Buy Now?

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 Enerpac Tool Group Corp. (NYSE:EPAC) for your portfolio? We’ll look to this invaluable collective wisdom for the answer.

Is EPAC a good stock to buy now? Enerpac Tool Group Corp. (NYSE:EPAC) has experienced a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds in recent months. Enerpac Tool Group Corp. (NYSE:EPAC) was in 11 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistics is 20. Our calculations also showed that EPAC 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.

In today’s marketplace there are tons of indicators shareholders employ to analyze publicly traded companies. Some of the less utilized indicators are hedge fund and insider trading moves. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best investment managers can outclass their index-focused peers by a very impressive amount (see the details here).

Alec Litowitz of Magnetar 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 check out the latest hedge fund action encompassing Enerpac Tool Group Corp. (NYSE:EPAC).

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

At Q3’s end, a total of 11 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -39% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards EPAC over the last 21 quarters. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Pzena Investment Management, managed by Richard S. Pzena, holds the number one position in Enerpac Tool Group Corp. (NYSE:EPAC). Pzena Investment Management has a $76.3 million position in the stock, comprising 0.5% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Arrowstreet Capital, managed by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell, which holds a $3.4 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other professional money managers that hold long positions include Renaissance Technologies, John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors and Mika Toikka’s AlphaCrest Capital Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Pzena Investment Management allocated the biggest weight to Enerpac Tool Group Corp. (NYSE:EPAC), around 0.48% of its 13F portfolio. AlphaCrest Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.05 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to EPAC.

Since Enerpac Tool Group Corp. (NYSE:EPAC) has experienced declining sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there exists a select few fund managers who sold off their entire stakes heading into Q4. Intriguingly, Jeffrey Bronchick’s Cove Street Capital sold off the largest investment of the 750 funds tracked by Insider Monkey, worth about $6.5 million in stock, and Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $0.7 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 7 funds heading into Q4.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Enerpac Tool Group Corp. (NYSE:EPAC) but similarly valued. These stocks are Radware Ltd. (NASDAQ:RDWR), Plains GP Holdings LP (NYSE:PAGP), Domo Inc. (NASDAQ:DOMO), Arcutis Biotherapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARQT), U.S. Physical Therapy, Inc. (NYSE:USPH), Tennant Company (NYSE:TNC), and Stoke Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:STOK). All of these stocks’ market caps match EPAC’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 13.6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $200 million. That figure was $84 million in EPAC’s case. Domo Inc. (NASDAQ:DOMO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Arcutis Biotherapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARQT) is the least popular one with only 9 bullish hedge fund positions. Enerpac Tool Group Corp. (NYSE:EPAC) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for EPAC is 21.2. 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 32.9% in 2020 through December 8th and still beat the market by 16.2 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on EPAC as the stock returned 27.3% since the end of the third quarter (through 12/8) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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