Is Glatfelter Corporation (GLT) A Good Stock To Buy Now?

With the third-quarter round of 13F filings behind us it is time to take a look at the stocks in which some of the best money managers in the world preferred to invest or sell heading into the fourth quarter. One of these stocks was Glatfelter Corporation (NYSE:GLT).

Is Glatfelter Corporation (GLT) a good stock to buy now? The best stock pickers were betting on the stock. The number of long hedge fund bets increased by 2 recently. Glatfelter Corporation (NYSE:GLT) was in 8 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2020. The all time high for this statistics is 16. Our calculations also showed that GLT 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 21st century investor’s toolkit there are a multitude of methods market participants employ to evaluate stocks. Some of the most innovative methods are hedge fund and insider trading moves. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the top investment managers can trounce the broader indices by a healthy amount (see the details here).

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. Keeping this in mind we’re going to view the latest hedge fund action encompassing Glatfelter Corporation (NYSE:GLT).

Hedge fund activity in Glatfelter Corporation (NYSE:GLT)

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2020, a total of 8 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 33% from the previous quarter. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in GLT over the last 21 quarters. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

The largest stake in Glatfelter Corporation (NYSE:GLT) was held by Royce & Associates, which reported holding $7.3 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Arrowstreet Capital with a $3 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Renaissance Technologies, Millennium Management, and D E Shaw. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Royce & Associates allocated the biggest weight to Glatfelter Corporation (NYSE:GLT), around 0.08% of its 13F portfolio. Engineers Gate Manager is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 0.02 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to GLT.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Renaissance Technologies, created the most outsized position in Glatfelter Corporation (NYSE:GLT). Renaissance Technologies had $1.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Israel Englander’s Millennium Management also initiated a $1.3 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new GLT positions are D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw and Greg Eisner’s Engineers Gate Manager.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Glatfelter Corporation (NYSE:GLT) but similarly valued. These stocks are Goldman Sachs BDC, Inc. (NYSE:GSBD), Autolus Therapeutics plc (NASDAQ:AUTL), First Bancorp (NASDAQ:FBNC), BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:BCRX), Zynex, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZYXI), Quanex Building Products Corporation (NYSE:NX), and State Auto Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:STFC). All of these stocks’ market caps match GLT’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 12 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $41 million. That figure was $15 million in GLT’s case. BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:BCRX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Goldman Sachs BDC, Inc. (NYSE:GSBD) is the least popular one with only 2 bullish hedge fund positions. Glatfelter Corporation (NYSE:GLT) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for GLT is 37. 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 31.6% in 2020 through December 2nd and still beat the market by 16 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on GLT as the stock returned 19.6% since the end of the third quarter (through 12/2) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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