Do Hedge Funds Love Bank of Hawaii Corporation (BOH)?

We at Insider Monkey have gone over 700 13F filings that hedge funds and prominent investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of September 30th. In this article we look at what those investors think of Bank of Hawaii Corporation (NYSE:BOH).

Bank of Hawaii Corporation (NYSE:BOH) was in 12 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. BOH shareholders have witnessed an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers of late. There were 11 hedge funds in our database with BOH holdings at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that boh isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.

At the moment there are dozens of signals stock market investors have at their disposal to appraise publicly traded companies. A duo of the most under-the-radar signals are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best investment managers can outperform the S&P 500 by a significant amount (see the details here).

Dmitry Balyasny

We’re going to take a look at the recent hedge fund action surrounding Bank of Hawaii Corporation (NYSE:BOH).

Hedge fund activity in Bank of Hawaii Corporation (NYSE:BOH)

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2018, a total of 12 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 9% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 9 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in BOH heading into this year. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

No of Hedge Funds with BOH Positions

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies has the most valuable position in Bank of Hawaii Corporation (NYSE:BOH), worth close to $23.5 million, comprising less than 0.1%% of its total 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is Royce & Associates, led by Chuck Royce, holding a $21.5 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other members of the smart money with similar optimism consist of Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.

As one would reasonably expect, key money managers have been driving this bullishness. Caxton Associates LP, managed by Bruce Kovner, initiated the largest position in Bank of Hawaii Corporation (NYSE:BOH). Caxton Associates LP had $0.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Bank of Hawaii Corporation (NYSE:BOH). We will take a look at Holly Energy Partners, L.P. (NYSE:HEP), KapStone Paper and Packaging Corp. (NYSE:KS), UniFirst Corp (NYSE:UNF), and FireEye Inc (NASDAQ:FEYE). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to BOH’s market value.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
HEP 3 4584 0
KS 21 489664 -2
UNF 16 185010 5
FEYE 29 337414 9
Average 17.25 254168 3

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 17.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $254 million. That figure was $85 million in BOH’s case. FireEye Inc (NASDAQ:FEYE) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Holly Energy Partners, L.P. (NYSE:HEP) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. Bank of Hawaii Corporation (NYSE:BOH) 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 FEYE might be a better candidate to consider a long position.

Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.