Hedge Funds Are Nibbling On Progress Software Corporation (PRGS)

The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. Insider Monkey finished processing 821 13F filings submitted by hedge funds and prominent investors. These filings show these funds’ portfolio positions as of March 31st, 2020. What do these smart investors think about Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ:PRGS)?

Is Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ:PRGS) the right investment to pursue these days? Money managers are betting on the stock. The number of long hedge fund positions increased by 2 in recent months. Our calculations also showed that PRGS isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks). PRGS was in 22 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2020. There were 20 hedge funds in our database with PRGS positions at the end of the previous quarter.

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

In the eyes of most traders, hedge funds are seen as worthless, outdated investment tools of yesteryear. While there are greater than 8000 funds trading at the moment, Our researchers choose to focus on the crème de la crème of this group, about 850 funds. These investment experts handle most of the hedge fund industry’s total asset base, and by watching their first-class investments, Insider Monkey has found various investment strategies that have historically outpaced Mr. Market. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy surpassed the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points a year since its inception in March 2017. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 36% since February 2017 (through May 18th) even though the market was up 30% during the same period. We just shared a list of 8 short targets in our latest quarterly update .

We leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, we believe electric vehicles and energy storage are set to become giant markets, and we want to take advantage of the declining lithium prices amid the COVID-19 pandemic. So we are checking out investment opportunities like these. We interview hedge fund managers and ask them about their best ideas. If you want to find out the best healthcare stock to buy right now, you can watch our latest hedge fund manager interview here. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. Our best call in 2020 was shorting the market when the S&P 500 was trading at 3150 after realizing the coronavirus pandemic’s significance before most investors. With all of this in mind let’s take a peek at the fresh hedge fund action encompassing Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ:PRGS).

What does smart money think about Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ:PRGS)?

At Q1’s end, a total of 22 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 10% from the fourth quarter of 2019. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in PRGS over the last 18 quarters. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

The largest stake in Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ:PRGS) was held by Renaissance Technologies, which reported holding $76.8 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Praesidium Investment Management Company with a $28 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included GLG Partners, Fisher Asset Management, and D E Shaw. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Praesidium Investment Management Company allocated the biggest weight to Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ:PRGS), around 2.26% of its 13F portfolio. Invenomic Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.43 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to PRGS.

As one would reasonably expect, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Praesidium Investment Management Company, managed by Kevin Oram and Peter Uddo, created the biggest position in Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ:PRGS). Praesidium Investment Management Company had $28 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Greg Eisner’s Engineers Gate Manager also made a $0.6 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new PRGS investors: Ali Motamed’s Invenomic Capital Management, Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP, and Benjamin A. Smith’s Laurion Capital Management.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ:PRGS). We will take a look at STAAR Surgical Company (NASDAQ:STAA), Primo Water Corporation (NYSE:PRMW), Pebblebrook Hotel Trust (NYSE:PEB), and Hillenbrand, Inc. (NYSE:HI). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to PRGS’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

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 $333 million. That figure was $198 million in PRGS’s case. Primo Water Corporation (NYSE:PRMW) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Pebblebrook Hotel Trust (NYSE:PEB) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ:PRGS) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our calculations showed that top 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.4% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10.1 percentage points. These stocks gained 13.9% in 2020 through June 10th but still beat the market by 14.2 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on PRGS as the stock returned 29.1% in Q2 (through June 10th) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

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