Is SHYF A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At the end of February we announced the arrival of the first US recession since 2009 and we predicted that the market will decline by at least 20% in (Recession is Imminent: We Need A Travel Ban NOW). In these volatile markets we scrutinize hedge fund filings to get a reading on which direction each stock might be going. In this article, we will take a closer look at hedge fund sentiment towards The Shyft Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SHYF).

Is SHYF a good stock to buy now? The Shyft Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SHYF) was in 13 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 18. SHYF has experienced a decrease in hedge fund sentiment recently. There were 18 hedge funds in our database with SHYF positions at the end of the second quarter. Our calculations also showed that SHYF 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 perceived as unimportant, old investment tools of years past. While there are over 8000 funds with their doors open at the moment, Our experts choose to focus on the masters of this club, about 850 funds. These investment experts handle the lion’s share of the hedge fund industry’s total asset base, and by monitoring their best picks, Insider Monkey has discovered various investment strategies that have historically beaten the market. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy outpaced the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points annually 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 .

Chuck Royce of Royce & Associates

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. Now we’re going to take a peek at the fresh hedge fund action encompassing The Shyft Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SHYF).

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

At third quarter’s end, a total of 13 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -28% from the second quarter of 2020. On the other hand, there were a total of 15 hedge funds with a bullish position in SHYF 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, Driehaus Capital held the most valuable stake in The Shyft Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SHYF), which was worth $18.3 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Royce & Associates which amassed $13.7 million worth of shares. Portolan Capital Management, Manatuck Hill Partners, and EJF Capital 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 Manatuck Hill Partners allocated the biggest weight to The Shyft Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SHYF), around 4.76% of its 13F portfolio. Portolan Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 1.34 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to SHYF.

Because The Shyft Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SHYF) has faced a decline in interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, logic holds that there is a sect of funds that elected to cut their entire stakes last quarter. Intriguingly, Josh Goldberg’s G2 Investment Partners Management dropped the largest investment of the “upper crust” of funds tracked by Insider Monkey, valued at about $4.5 million in stock. Ken Griffin’s fund, Citadel Investment Group, also dropped its stock, about $1.4 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 5 funds last quarter.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to The Shyft Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SHYF). We will take a look at Kadmon Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:KDMN), Solar Capital Ltd. (NASDAQ:SLRC), Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corp. (NYSE:AGM), Hollysys Automation Technologies Ltd (NASDAQ:HOLI), IES Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:IESC), UP Fintech Holding Limited (NASDAQ:TIGR), and Quotient Technology Inc (NYSE:QUOT). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to SHYF’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 12.9 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $162 million. That figure was $72 million in SHYF’s case. Kadmon Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:KDMN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand UP Fintech Holding Limited (NASDAQ:TIGR) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. The Shyft Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SHYF) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for SHYF is 41.1. 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 SHYF as the stock returned 46.5% 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.