Is Core-Mark Holding Company, Inc. (CORE) A Good Stock To Buy?

The 700+ hedge funds and money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the third quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of September 30. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund positions. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards Core-Mark Holding Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:CORE) .

Core-Mark Holding Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:CORE) investors should be aware of a decrease in enthusiasm from smart money of late. There were 17 hedge funds in our database with CORE positions at the end of the previous quarter. 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 Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE), First Financial Bankshares Inc (NASDAQ:FFIN), and TCF Financial Corporation (NYSE:TCB) to gather more data points.

Follow Core-Mark Holding Company Llc (NASDAQ:CORE)

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

market, green, row, stall, red, stand, bright, marketplace, vegetables, supermarket, traditional, basket, sale, color, grocery, colorful, store, apple, fruit, fresh, bazaar, shop, food

Steve Buckley/Shutterstock.com

Keeping this in mind, let’s take a look at the fresh action encompassing Core-Mark Holding Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:CORE).

How have hedgies been trading Core-Mark Holding Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:CORE)?

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 14 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a decline of 18% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 13 hedge funds with a bullish position in CORE at the beginning of this year. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

HedgeFundSentimentChart

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Royce & Associates, led by Chuck Royce, holds the number one position in Core-Mark Holding Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:CORE). According to regulatory filings, the fund has a $33.8 million position in the stock, comprising 0.2% of its 13F portfolio. On Royce & Associates’s heels is Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies with a $6.4 million position; less than 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other peers with similar optimism include Charles Paquelet’s Skylands Capital, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.

Due to the fact that Core-Mark Holding Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:CORE) has experienced a decline in interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, we can see that there exists a select few funds that slashed their positions entirely by the end of the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management dumped the largest investment of all the hedgies monitored by Insider Monkey, totaling an estimated $7.7 million in stock. Richard Driehaus’s fund, Driehaus Capital, also dumped its stock, about $1.2 million worth of shares.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Core-Mark Holding Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:CORE) but similarly valued. These stocks are Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE), First Financial Bankshares Inc (NASDAQ:FFIN), TCF Financial Corporation (NYSE:TCB), and Ormat Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:ORA). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to CORE’s market valuation.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
WAGE 10 84067 -1
FFIN 4 7590 1
TCB 16 133405 -2
ORA 14 72677 2

As you can see these stocks had an average of 11 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $74 million. That figure was $58 million in CORE’s case. TCF Financial Corporation (NYSE:TCB) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand First Financial Bankshares Inc (NASDAQ:FFIN) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Core-Mark Holding Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:CORE) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard TCB might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Suggested Articles:
Countries That Consume The Most Turkey
Friendliest Countries To Americans
Countries With Highest Standard Of Living

Disclosure: None