Stonegate Bank (SGBK) Hedge Funds Are Snapping Up

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 Stonegate Bank (NASDAQ:SGBK) .

Stonegate Bank (NASDAQ:SGBK) shareholders have witnessed an increase in hedge fund interest lately. SGBK was in 15 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 11 hedge funds in our database with SGBK positions at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare SGBK to other stocks including The First of Long Island Corporation (NASDAQ:FLIC), EZCORP Inc (NASDAQ:EZPW), and Overstock.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:OSTK) to get a better sense of its popularity.

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.

How are hedge funds trading Stonegate Bank (NASDAQ:SGBK)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 15 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a rise of 36% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in SGBK over the last 5 quarters. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Seidman Investment Partnership, led by Lawrence Seidman, holds the biggest position in Stonegate Bank (NASDAQ:SGBK). Seidman Investment Partnership has a $20.3 million position in the stock, comprising 14.2% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies, which holds an $8.7 million position. Some other hedge funds and institutional investors that hold long positions include Matthew Lindenbaum’s Basswood Capital, Mark Lee’s Forest Hill Capital and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management. 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.

As one would reasonably expect, specific money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Basswood Capital, led by Matthew Lindenbaum, established the most valuable position in Stonegate Bank (NASDAQ:SGBK). Basswood Capital had $4.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Mark Lee’s Forest Hill Capital also initiated a $3.5 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Fred Cummings’s Elizabeth Park Capital Management, Amy Minella’s Cardinal Capital, and William Black’s Consector Capital.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Stonegate Bank (NASDAQ:SGBK) but similarly valued. We will take a look at The First of Long Island Corporation (NASDAQ:FLIC), EZCORP Inc (NASDAQ:EZPW), Overstock.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:OSTK), and Sangamo Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:SGMO). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to SGBK’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 13 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $81 million. That figure was $48 million in SGBK’s case. Sangamo Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:SGMO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand The First of Long Island Corporation (NASDAQ:FLIC) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Stonegate Bank (NASDAQ:SGBK) 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 SGMO might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: None