Where Do Hedge Funds Stand On National Bankshares Inc. (NKSH)?

The Insider Monkey team has completed processing the quarterly 13F filings for the March quarter submitted by the hedge funds and other money managers included in our extensive database. Most hedge fund investors experienced strong gains on the back of a strong market performance, which certainly propelled them to adjust their equity holdings so as to maintain the desired risk profile. As a result, the relevancy of these public filings and their content is indisputable, as they may reveal numerous high-potential stocks. The following article will discuss the smart money sentiment towards National Bankshares Inc. (NASDAQ:NKSH).

National Bankshares Inc. (NASDAQ:NKSH) was in 3 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 3. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. NKSH shareholders have witnessed an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds in recent months. There were 2 hedge funds in our database with NKSH holdings at the end of December. Our calculations also showed that NKSH isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).

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Chuck Royce of Royce & Associates

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, an activist hedge fund wants to buy this $28 biotech stock for $50. So, we recommended a long position to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 10 best battery stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. 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 homepage. Keeping this in mind let’s check out the key hedge fund action regarding National Bankshares Inc. (NASDAQ:NKSH).

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

At Q1’s end, a total of 3 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 50% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 2 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in NKSH a year ago. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates has the biggest position in National Bankshares Inc. (NASDAQ:NKSH), worth close to $10.6 million, accounting for 0.1% of its total 13F portfolio. On Royce & Associates’s heels is Renaissance Technologies, with a $2.3 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Royce & Associates allocated the biggest weight to National Bankshares Inc. (NASDAQ:NKSH), around 0.07% of its 13F portfolio. Renaissance Technologies is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 0.0029 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to NKSH.

Now, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Arrowstreet Capital, managed by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell, initiated the largest position in National Bankshares Inc. (NASDAQ:NKSH). Arrowstreet Capital had $0.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to National Bankshares Inc. (NASDAQ:NKSH). We will take a look at Ayro, Inc. (NASDAQ:AYRO), Corvus Gold Inc. (NASDAQ:KOR), Postal Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:PSTL), Mid Penn Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:MPB), Genasys Inc. (NASDAQ:GNSS), LSI Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:LYTS), and IRSA Inversiones y Representaciones Sociedad Anónima (NYSE:IRS). This group of stocks’ market valuations match NKSH’s market valuation.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $22 million. That figure was $14 million in NKSH’s case. LSI Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:LYTS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Corvus Gold Inc. (NASDAQ:KOR) is the least popular one with only 2 bullish hedge fund positions. National Bankshares Inc. (NASDAQ:NKSH) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for NKSH is 41. 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. 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 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 17.2% in 2021 through June 11th and surpassed the market again by 3.3 percentage points. Unfortunately NKSH wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); NKSH investors were disappointed as the stock returned 4.1% since the end of March (through 6/11) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market in 2021.

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