Is FLIC A Good Stock To Buy Now?

After several tireless days we have finished crunching the numbers from nearly 817 13F filings issued by the elite hedge funds and other investment firms that we track at Insider Monkey, which disclosed those firms’ equity portfolios as of September 30th. The results of that effort will be put on display in this article, as we share valuable insight into the smart money sentiment towards The First of Long Island Corporation (NASDAQ:FLIC).

Is FLIC a good stock to buy now? Hedge funds were selling. The number of long hedge fund bets dropped by 1 recently. The First of Long Island Corporation (NASDAQ:FLIC) was in 10 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistics is 12. Our calculations also showed that FLIC 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In the eyes of most investors, hedge funds are seen as slow, outdated investment tools of yesteryear. While there are greater than 8000 funds in operation at the moment, Our researchers hone in on the crème de la crème of this club, about 850 funds. These money managers handle the lion’s share of the smart money’s total capital, and by watching their highest performing picks, Insider Monkey has deciphered a few investment strategies that have historically outrun Mr. Market. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy defeated the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points per year since its inception in March 2017. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 13% since February 2017 (through November 17th) even though the market was up 65% during the same period. We just shared a list of 6 short targets in our latest quarterly update .

Ric Dillon of Diamond Hill 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. Keeping this in mind let’s take a peek at the new hedge fund action regarding The First of Long Island Corporation (NASDAQ:FLIC).

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

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2020, a total of 10 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -9% from the second quarter of 2020. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in FLIC over the last 21 quarters. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

More specifically, Renaissance Technologies was the largest shareholder of The First of Long Island Corporation (NASDAQ:FLIC), with a stake worth $11.2 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Renaissance Technologies was Diamond Hill Capital, which amassed a stake valued at $3.9 million. Arrowstreet Capital, Chilton Investment Company, and MFP Investors were 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 MFP Investors allocated the biggest weight to The First of Long Island Corporation (NASDAQ:FLIC), around 0.23% of its 13F portfolio. Chilton Investment Company is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.06 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to FLIC.

Due to the fact that The First of Long Island Corporation (NASDAQ:FLIC) has witnessed a decline in interest from hedge fund managers, logic holds that there exists a select few hedgies who were dropping their entire stakes last quarter. Intriguingly, Emanuel J. Friedman’s EJF Capital said goodbye to the largest stake of the 750 funds followed by Insider Monkey, comprising about $1.5 million in stock, and Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $1 million worth. These moves are interesting, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 1 funds last quarter.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as The First of Long Island Corporation (NASDAQ:FLIC) but similarly valued. These stocks are Hoegh LNG Partners LP (NYSE:HMLP), Customers Bancorp Inc (NYSE:CUBI), IMARA Inc. (NASDAQ:IMRA), Alliance Resource Partners, L.P. (NASDAQ:ARLP), Dynex Capital Inc (NYSE:DX), MRC Global Inc (NYSE:MRC), and MEI Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:MEIP). This group of stocks’ market valuations resemble FLIC’s market valuation.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 9.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $31 million. That figure was $22 million in FLIC’s case. MRC Global Inc (NYSE:MRC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Alliance Resource Partners, L.P. (NASDAQ:ARLP) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. The First of Long Island Corporation (NASDAQ:FLIC) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for FLIC is 50.4. 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. Hedge funds were also right about betting on FLIC as the stock returned 23.5% since the end of Q3 (through 12/8) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

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