Is Great Southern Bancorp, Inc. (GSBC) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds?

We view hedge fund activity in the stock unfavorable, but in this case there was only a single hedge fund selling its entire position: Springbok Capital. 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 none of the 700+ hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey identified GSBC as a viable investment and initiated a position in the stock.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Great Southern Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:GSBC). We will take a look at Sucampo Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCMP), Novavax, Inc. (NASDAQ:NVAX), Investment Technology Group (NYSE:ITG), and American Renal Associates Holdings Inc (NYSE:ARA). This group of stocks’ market values resemble GSBC’s market value.

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 $106 million. That figure was $11 million in GSBC’s case. Sucampo Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCMP) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand American Renal Associates Holdings Inc (NYSE:ARA) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Great Southern Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:GSBC) is even less popular than ARA. Considering that hedge funds aren’t fond of this stock in relation to other companies analyzed in this article, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and understand why the smart money isn’t behind this stock. This isn’t necessarily bad news. Although it is possible that hedge funds may think the stock is overpriced and view the stock as a short candidate, they may not be very familiar with the bullish thesis. In either case more research is warranted.

Disclosure: none.