Should I Buy First Bancorp (FBP)?

A whopping number of 13F filings filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been processed by Insider Monkey so that individual investors can look at the overall hedge fund sentiment towards the stocks included in their watchlists. These freshly-submitted public filings disclose money managers’ equity positions as of the end of the three-month period that ended June 30th, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment on First Bancorp (NYSE:FBP).

First Bancorp (NYSE:FBP) shares haven’t seen a lot of action during the second quarter. Overall, hedge fund sentiment was unchanged. The stock was in 25 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the second quarter of 2021. Our calculations also showed that FBP isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings). The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as Corcept Therapeutics Incorporated (NASDAQ:CORT), Fulton Financial Corp (NASDAQ:FULT), and Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:FOLD) to gather more data points.

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Emanuel Friedman of EJF Capital

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

At the end of the second quarter, a total of 25 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 0% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 26 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in FBP a year ago. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were adding to their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

The largest stake in First Bancorp (NYSE:FBP) was held by EJF Capital, which reported holding $46.6 million worth of stock at the end of June. It was followed by Arctis Global with a $44.2 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Arrowstreet Capital, Rubric Capital Management, and Alyeska Investment Group. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Arctis Global allocated the biggest weight to First Bancorp (NYSE:FBP), around 7.19% of its 13F portfolio. Mendon Capital Advisors is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 4.47 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to FBP.

Due to the fact that First Bancorp (NYSE:FBP) has experienced falling interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, we can see that there lies a certain “tier” of hedgies that decided to sell off their positions entirely by the end of the second quarter. Interestingly, Greg Eisner’s Engineers Gate Manager dumped the biggest position of the “upper crust” of funds followed by Insider Monkey, totaling an estimated $1.8 million in stock. Michael Gelband’s fund, ExodusPoint Capital, also cut its stock, about $1.3 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as First Bancorp (NYSE:FBP) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Corcept Therapeutics Incorporated (NASDAQ:CORT), Fulton Financial Corp (NASDAQ:FULT), Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:FOLD), BRP Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:BRP), Domo Inc. (NASDAQ:DOMO), Liberty Oilfield Services Inc. (NYSE:LBRT), and Green Dot Corporation (NYSE:GDOT). All of these stocks’ market caps match FBP’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 20.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $308 million. That figure was $263 million in FBP’s case. Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:FOLD) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Fulton Financial Corp (NASDAQ:FULT) is the least popular one with only 11 bullish hedge fund positions. First Bancorp (NYSE:FBP) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for FBP is 58.9. 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 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 24% in 2021 through October 22nd and still beat the market by 1.6 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on FBP as the stock returned 18.7% since the end of Q2 (through 10/22) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

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