What Successful Investors Have to Say About PrivateBancorp Inc (PVTB)

Judging by the fact that PrivateBancorp Inc (NASDAQ:PVTB) has faced bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there was a specific group of fund managers that decided to sell off their full holdings in the third quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management dumped the largest position of all the hedgies tracked by Insider Monkey, valued at an estimated $61.3 million in stock, and Principal Global Investors’ Columbus Circle Investors was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $52.7 million worth of shares. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 3 funds in the third quarter.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as PrivateBancorp Inc (NASDAQ:PVTB) but similarly valued. These stocks are ViaSat, Inc. (NASDAQ:VSAT), HEALTHSOUTH Corp. (NYSE:HLS), Leidos Holdings Inc (NYSE:LDOS), and ONE Gas Inc (NYSE:OGS). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble PVTB’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 20.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $783 million. That figure was $551 million in PVTB’s case. Leidos Holdings Inc (NYSE:LDOS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand ONE Gas Inc (NYSE:OGS) is the least popular one with only 11 bullish hedge fund positions. PrivateBancorp Inc (NASDAQ:PVTB) 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 LDOS might be a better candidate to consider a long position in.

Disclosure: None