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. Insider Monkey finished processing 866 13F filings submitted by hedge funds and prominent investors. These filings show these funds’ portfolio positions as of March 31st, 2020. What do these smart investors think about Mid-Southern Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:MSVB)?
Mid-Southern Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:MSVB) investors should be aware of a decrease in hedge fund interest lately. Mid-Southern Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:MSVB) was in 3 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 5. There were 4 hedge funds in our database with MSVB positions at the end of the fourth quarter. Our calculations also showed that MSVB isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).
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 115 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
Michael Price of MFP Investors
At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, an activist hedge fund wants to buy this $28 biotech stock for $50. So, we recommended a long position to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 10 best battery stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. 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 homepage. With all of this in mind let’s view the new hedge fund action encompassing Mid-Southern Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:MSVB).
Do Hedge Funds Think MSVB Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At Q1’s end, a total of 3 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -25% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 4 hedge funds with a bullish position in MSVB a year ago. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
Among these funds, MFP Investors held the most valuable stake in Mid-Southern Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:MSVB), which was worth $2.6 million at the end of the fourth quarter. On the second spot was AWH Capital which amassed $0.7 million worth of shares. Minerva Advisors 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 AWH Capital allocated the biggest weight to Mid-Southern Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:MSVB), around 0.68% of its 13F portfolio. MFP Investors is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 0.31 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to MSVB.
We view hedge fund activity in the stock unfavorable, but in this case there was only a single hedge fund selling its entire position: Seidman Investment Partnership. One hedge fund selling its entire position doesn’t always imply a bearish intent. Theoretically a hedge fund may decide to sell a promising position in order to invest the proceeds in a more promising idea. However, we don’t think this is the case in this case because none of the 750+ hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey identified MSVB as a viable investment and initiated a position in the stock.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Mid-Southern Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:MSVB). These stocks are ShiftPixy, Inc. (NASDAQ:PIXY), Virios Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VIRI), NLS Pharmaceutics AG (NASDAQ:NLSP), Tremont Mortgage Trust (NASDAQ:TRMT), Broadway Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:BYFC), Comstock Holding Companies, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHCI), and China Jo Jo Drugstores Inc (NASDAQ:CJJD). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble MSVB’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| PIXY | 4 | 583 | 2 |
| VIRI | 3 | 3782 | 1 |
| NLSP | 3 | 799 | 3 |
| TRMT | 3 | 1284 | 1 |
| BYFC | 3 | 1142 | -1 |
| CHCI | 2 | 2312 | -1 |
| CJJD | 6 | 7692 | 1 |
| Average | 3.4 | 2513 | 0.9 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 3.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $3 million. That figure was $4 million in MSVB’s case. China Jo Jo Drugstores Inc (NASDAQ:CJJD) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Comstock Holding Companies, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHCI) is the least popular one with only 2 bullish hedge fund positions. Mid-Southern Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:MSVB) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for MSVB is 34.5. 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. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. 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 surpassed the market again by 3.3 percentage points. Unfortunately MSVB wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); MSVB investors were disappointed as the stock returned 0.7% since the end of March (through 6/11) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market in 2021.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
