Where Do Hedge Funds Stand On QCR Holdings, Inc. (QCRH)?

In this article we will take a look at whether hedge funds think QCR Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCRH) is a good investment right now. We check hedge fund and billionaire investor sentiment before delving into hours of research. Hedge funds spend millions of dollars on Ivy League graduates, unconventional data sources, expert networks, and get tips from investment bankers and industry insiders. Sure they sometimes fail miserably, but their consensus stock picks historically outperformed the market after adjusting for known risk factors.

QCR Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCRH) shares haven’t seen a lot of action during the second quarter. Overall, hedge fund sentiment was unchanged. The stock was in 11 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. Our calculations also showed that QCRH isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks). At the end of this article we will also compare QCRH to other stocks including Avid Bioservices, Inc. (NASDAQ:CDMO), Napco Security Technologies Inc (NASDAQ:NSSC), and MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ:MNKD) to get a better sense of its popularity.

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

At the moment there are a large number of gauges shareholders employ to analyze their stock investments. A couple of the best gauges are hedge fund and insider trading moves. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the elite money managers can trounce their index-focused peers by a very impressive amount (see the details here).

Noam Gottesman of GLG Partners

At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 15 best blue chip stocks to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. 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 website. With all of this in mind let’s take a peek at the key hedge fund action regarding QCR Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCRH).

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

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 11 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 0% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 10 hedge funds with a bullish position in QCRH 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.

Among these funds, Renaissance Technologies held the most valuable stake in QCR Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCRH), which was worth $15.3 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Endicott Management which amassed $11.8 million worth of shares. Elizabeth Park Capital Management, Prospector Partners, and GLG Partners were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Endicott Management allocated the biggest weight to QCR Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCRH), around 16.27% of its 13F portfolio. Elizabeth Park Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 4.93 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to QCRH.

We view hedge fund activity in the stock unfavorable, but in this case there was only a single hedge fund selling its entire position: Castine Capital Management. One hedge fund selling its entire position doesn’t always imply a bearish intent. Theoretically a hedge fund may decide to sell a promising position in order to invest the proceeds in a more promising idea. However, we don’t think this is the case in this case because only one of the 800+ hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey identified as a viable investment and initiated a position in the stock (that fund was GLG Partners).

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to QCR Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCRH). These stocks are Avid Bioservices, Inc. (NASDAQ:CDMO), Napco Security Technologies Inc (NASDAQ:NSSC), MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ:MNKD), First Financial Corp (NASDAQ:THFF), Global Cord Blood Corp (NYSE:CO), TherapeuticsMD Inc (NASDAQ:TXMD), and Harpoon Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HARP). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to QCRH’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 9.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $29 million. That figure was $42 million in QCRH’s case. Avid Bioservices, Inc. (NASDAQ:CDMO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Napco Security Technologies Inc (NASDAQ:NSSC) is the least popular one with only 2 bullish hedge fund positions. QCR Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCRH) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for QCRH is 62.5. 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 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.3% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10 percentage points. These stocks gained 32.9% in 2020 through December 8th and still beat the market by 16.2 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on QCRH as the stock returned 39.4% since the end of Q3 (through 12/8) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

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