Is S.Y. Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYBT) a good stock to buy right now? We at Insider Monkey like to examine what billionaires and hedge funds think of a company before doing days of research on it. Given their 2 and 20 payment structure, hedge funds have more incentives and resources than the average investor. The funds have access to expert networks and get tips from industry insiders. They also have numerous Ivy League graduates and MBAs. Like everyone else, hedge funds perform miserably at times, but their consensus picks have historically outperformed the market after risk adjustments.
S.Y. Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYBT) investors should pay attention to a decrease in enthusiasm from smart money lately. SYBT was in 6 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of December. There were 9 hedge funds in our database with SYBT holdings at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that SYBT isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
At the moment there are a large number of methods shareholders can use to value stocks. Some of the most useful methods are hedge fund and insider trading signals. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best fund managers can outpace the market by a healthy amount (see the details here).
We’re going to take a look at the recent hedge fund action surrounding S.Y. Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYBT).
How have hedgies been trading S.Y. Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYBT)?
At Q4’s end, a total of 6 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -33% from the second quarter of 2018. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards SYBT over the last 14 quarters. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes significantly (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in S.Y. Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYBT) was held by Renaissance Technologies, which reported holding $6 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by D E Shaw with a $1.4 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Two Sigma Advisors, Millennium Management, and AQR Capital Management.
Because S.Y. Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYBT) has witnessed declining sentiment from the smart money, we can see that there is a sect of hedgies who sold off their positions entirely last quarter. At the top of the heap, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group said goodbye to the biggest position of all the hedgies tracked by Insider Monkey, comprising an estimated $1.2 million in stock. Richard Driehaus’s fund, Driehaus Capital, also sold off its stock, about $0.4 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as total hedge fund interest fell by 3 funds last quarter.
Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to S.Y. Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYBT). These stocks are Compass Diversified Holdings LLC (NYSE:CODI), Revance Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:RVNC), Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:APLS), and Herc Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HRI). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble SYBT’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| CODI | 4 | 3605 | 0 |
| RVNC | 9 | 27020 | -2 |
| APLS | 17 | 171412 | 3 |
| HRI | 27 | 323111 | 3 |
| Average | 14.25 | 131287 | 1 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 14.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $131 million. That figure was $10 million in SYBT’s case. Herc Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HRI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Compass Diversified Holdings LLC (NYSE:CODI) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. S.Y. Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYBT) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. 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 15 most popular stocks) among hedge funds returned 24.2% through April 22nd and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by more than 7 percentage points. Unfortunately SYBT wasn’t nearly as popular as these 15 stock (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); SYBT investors were disappointed as the stock returned 3.6% and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 15 most popular stocks) among hedge funds as 13 of these stocks already outperformed the market this year.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
