Is OmniAmerican Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:OABC) the right pick for your portfolio? Money managers are in a bullish mood. The number of bullish hedge fund bets went up by 1 lately.
To most investors, hedge funds are perceived as worthless, outdated investment vehicles of yesteryear. While there are more than 8000 funds trading today, we choose to focus on the leaders of this group, close to 450 funds. It is widely believed that this group controls the lion’s share of the smart money’s total asset base, and by watching their highest performing equity investments, we have unearthed a few investment strategies that have historically beaten Mr. Market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points annually for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve began to sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have outperformed the S&P 500 index by 24 percentage points in 7 months (see all of our picks from August).
Just as important, bullish insider trading activity is another way to break down the world of equities. Obviously, there are a number of incentives for an insider to downsize shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would initiate a purchase. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this method if “monkeys” know what to do (learn more here).
With all of this in mind, it’s important to take a gander at the latest action encompassing OmniAmerican Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:OABC).
How have hedgies been trading OmniAmerican Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:OABC)?
At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 6 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 20% from the previous quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes considerably.
Of the funds we track, MFP Investors, managed by Michael Price, holds the biggest position in OmniAmerican Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:OABC). MFP Investors has a $6.9 million position in the stock, comprising 1% of its 13F portfolio. On MFP Investors’s heels is Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies, with a $3 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other hedgies with similar optimism include Howard Guberman’s Gruss Asset Management, Neil Chriss’s Hutchin Hill Capital and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw.
Consequently, specific money managers have jumped into OmniAmerican Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:OABC) headfirst. Hutchin Hill Capital, managed by Neil Chriss, established the most valuable position in OmniAmerican Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:OABC). Hutchin Hill Capital had 0.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter.
Insider trading activity in OmniAmerican Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:OABC)
Insider trading activity, especially when it’s bullish, is at its handiest when the company in question has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last six-month time frame, OmniAmerican Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:OABC) has experienced 1 unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
Let’s also take a look at hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to OmniAmerican Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:OABC). These stocks are MidWestOne Financial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:MOFG), Southwest Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:OKSB), Great Southern Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:GSBC), Enterprise Financial Services Corp (NASDAQ:EFSC), and CoBiz Financial Inc (NASDAQ:COBZ). This group of stocks are in the regional – southwest banks industry and their market caps are similar to OABC’s market cap.
| Company Name | # of Hedge Funds | # of Insiders Buying | # of Insiders Selling |
| MidWestOne Financial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:MOFG) | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| Southwest Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:OKSB) | 7 | 2 | 0 |
| Great Southern Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:GSBC) | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| Enterprise Financial Services Corp (NASDAQ:EFSC) | 4 | 1 | 5 |
| CoBiz Financial Inc (NASDAQ:COBZ) | 4 | 0 | 1 |
With the results shown by our time-tested strategies, retail investors must always keep an eye on hedge fund and insider trading activity, and OmniAmerican Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:OABC) applies perfectly to this mantra.
