OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC) was in 6 hedge funds’ portfolio at the end of the first quarter of 2013. OCFC investors should be aware of an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers of late. There were 4 hedge funds in our database with OCFC positions at the end of the previous quarter.
At the moment, there are plenty of methods market participants can use to track stocks. Some of the most innovative are hedge fund and insider trading interest. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the elite investment managers can trounce the broader indices by a solid amount (see just how much).
Equally as integral, optimistic insider trading activity is another way to parse down the marketplace. Obviously, there are lots of incentives for a bullish insider to cut shares of his or her company, but only one, very simple reason why they would buy. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this strategy if piggybackers understand where to look (learn more here).
Keeping this in mind, it’s important to take a gander at the key action surrounding OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC).
How are hedge funds trading OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC)?
At Q1’s end, a total of 6 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 50% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings significantly.
As industrywide interest jumped, key money managers were breaking ground themselves. D E Shaw, managed by D. E. Shaw, created the most outsized position in OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC). D E Shaw had 0.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management also made a $0.2 million investment in the stock during the quarter.
What have insiders been doing with OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC)?
Insider purchases made by high-level executives is most useful when the company in focus has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest half-year time period, OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
Let’s check out hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC). These stocks are Fox Chase Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:FXCB), United Financial Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:UBNK), First Defiance Financial (NASDAQ:FDEF), Waterstone Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ:WSBF), and Bank Mutual Corporation (NASDAQ:BKMU). All of these stocks are in the savings & loans industry and their market caps are closest to OCFC’s market cap.
| Company Name | # of Hedge Funds | # of Insiders Buying | # of Insiders Selling |
| Fox Chase Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:FXCB) | 5 | 0 | 2 |
| United Financial Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:UBNK) | 8 | 3 | 0 |
| First Defiance Financial (NASDAQ:FDEF) | 4 | 0 | 1 |
| Waterstone Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ:WSBF) | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Bank Mutual Corporation (NASDAQ:BKMU) | 6 | 1 | 1 |
With the returns exhibited by our studies, everyday investors should always monitor hedge fund and insider trading activity, and OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC) is an important part of this process.
