Do Hedge Funds Love Hancock Holding Company (HBHC)?

As aggregate interest increased, some big names have been driving this bullishness. Arrowstreet Capital, managed by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell, created the most valuable position in Hancock Holding Company (NASDAQ:HBHC). Arrowstreet Capital had $9.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group also initiated a $3.4 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new HBHC investors: Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies, Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management, and Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Hancock Holding Company (NASDAQ:HBHC). These stocks are B&G Foods, Inc. (NYSE:BGS), Time Inc (NYSE:TIME), Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC), and Triumph Group Inc (NYSE:TGI). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to HBHC’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 19 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $184 million. That figure was $143 million in HBHC’s case. Triumph Group Inc (NYSE:TGI) is the most popular stock in this table and Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC) is the least popular one with only 14 bullish hedge fund positions. Hancock Holding Company (NASDAQ:HBHC) 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. In this regard TGI might be a better candidate to consider a long position.