Should You Buy Marlin Business Services Corp. (MRLN)?

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As industrywide interest jumped, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. Arrowstreet Capital assembled the biggest position in Marlin Business Services Corp. (NASDAQ:MRLN). Arrowstreet Capital had $0.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Matthew Lindenbaum’s Basswood Capital also made a $0.4 million investment in the stock during the quarter.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Marlin Business Services Corp. (NASDAQ:MRLN) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Container Store Group Inc (NYSE:TCS), Olympic Steel, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZEUS), Patriot National Inc (NYSE:PN), and JA Solar Holdings Co., Ltd. (ADR) (NASDAQ:JASO). This group of stocks’ market values resemble MRLN’s market value.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
TCS 7 13829 -5
ZEUS 9 15182 -1
PN 8 16926 3
JASO 6 4830 -2

As you can see these stocks had an average of 8 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $13 million. That figure was $64 million in MRLN’s case. Olympic Steel, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZEUS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand JA Solar Holdings Co., Ltd. (ADR) (NASDAQ:JASO) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Marlin Business Services Corp. (NASDAQ:MRLN) 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 ZEUS might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: None

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