Hedge funds and other investment firms that we track manage billions of dollars of their wealthy clients’ money, and needless to say, they are painstakingly thorough when analyzing where to invest this money, as their own wealth depends on it. Regardless of the various methods used by elite investors like David Tepper and Dan Loeb, the resources they expend are second-to-none. This is especially valuable when it comes to small-cap stocks, which is where they generate their strongest outperformance, as their resources give them a huge edge when it comes to studying these stocks compared to the average investor, which is why we intently follow their activity in the small-cap space.
Is The St. Joe Company (NYSE:JOE) a healthy stock for your portfolio? Money managers are turning less bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund bets were cut by 1 recently. At the end of this article we will also compare JOE to other stocks including Ferrellgas Partners, L.P. (NYSE:FGP), Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. (NASDAQ:MLNX), and Eastgroup Properties Inc (NYSE:EGP) to get a better sense of its popularity.
Follow St Joe Co (NYSE:JOE)
Follow St Joe Co (NYSE:JOE)
Keeping this in mind, let’s take a look at the recent action regarding The St. Joe Company (NYSE:JOE).
How have hedgies been trading The St. Joe Company (NYSE:JOE)?
At Q3’s end, a total of 9 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -10% from the second quarter. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Fairholme (FAIRX), managed by Bruce Berkowitz, holds the biggest position in The St. Joe Company (NYSE:JOE). Fairholme (FAIRX) has a $467.8 million position in the stock, comprising 13.5% of its 13F portfolio. On Fairholme (FAIRX)’s heels is Mario Gabelli of GAMCO Investors, with a $23.7 million position; the fund has 0.2% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other professional money managers that are bullish comprise Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.
Due to the fact that The St. Joe Company (NYSE:JOE) has witnessed declining sentiment from hedge fund managers, it’s easy to see that there lies a certain “tier” of fund managers who sold off their positions entirely by the end of the third quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Peter Muller’s PDT Partners cut the biggest position of the “upper crust” of funds watched by Insider Monkey, worth about $1.2 million in stock. D. E. Shaw’s fund, D E Shaw, also said goodbye to its stock, about $0.6 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 1 funds by the end of the third quarter.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to The St. Joe Company (NYSE:JOE). These stocks are Ferrellgas Partners, L.P. (NYSE:FGP), Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. (NASDAQ:MLNX), Eastgroup Properties Inc (NYSE:EGP), and Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to JOE’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| FGP | 4 | 8639 | 0 |
| MLNX | 33 | 411147 | -1 |
| EGP | 14 | 61083 | 8 |
| HTLD | 12 | 105107 | -7 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 15.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $146 million. That figure was $516 million in JOE’s case. Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. (NASDAQ:MLNX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Ferrellgas Partners, L.P. (NYSE:FGP) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. The St. Joe Company (NYSE:JOE) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Given the hedge fund position size, however, JOE is worth a closer look.
