Hedge Funds Are Piling Into PAR Technology Corporation (PAR)

Our extensive research has shown that imitating the smart money can generate significant returns for retail investors, which is why we track nearly 900 active prominent money managers and analyze their quarterly 13F filings. The stocks that are heavily bought by hedge funds historically outperformed the market, though there is no shortage of high profile failures like hedge funds’ 2018 losses in Facebook and Apple. Let’s take a closer look at what the funds we track think about PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR) in this article.

PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR) investors should be aware of an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers of late. PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR) was in 23 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 19. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. Our calculations also showed that PAR isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).

Chuck Royce

Chuck Royce of Royce & Associates

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium prices have more than doubled over the past year, so we go through lists like the 10 best EV stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. With all of this in mind let’s take a peek at the key hedge fund action regarding PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR).

Do Hedge Funds Think PAR Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At the end of September, a total of 23 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 35% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards PAR over the last 25 quarters. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Is PAR A Good Stock To Buy?

More specifically, ADW Capital was the largest shareholder of PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR), with a stake worth $125 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing ADW Capital was Nine Ten Partners, which amassed a stake valued at $75.3 million. Greenhaven Road Investment Management, Royce & Associates, and Light Street Capital were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position ADW Capital allocated the biggest weight to PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR), around 39.26% of its 13F portfolio. Greenhaven Road Investment Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 13.26 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to PAR.

As aggregate interest increased, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Light Street Capital, managed by Glen Kacher, created the biggest position in PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR). Light Street Capital had $41 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Mina Faltas’s Washington Harbour Partners also made a $28.9 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new PAR investors: Adam Wyden’s ADW Capital, Joseph Samuels’s Islet Management, and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Horace Mann Educators Corporation (NYSE:HMN), PROCEPT BioRobotics Corporation (NASDAQ:PRCT), HudBay Minerals Inc (NYSE:HBM), B. Riley Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ:RILY), Noble Corporation (NYSE:NE), Ferroglobe PLC (NASDAQ:GSM), and NGM Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:NGM). This group of stocks’ market valuations resemble PAR’s market valuation.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
HMN 10 24626 -5
PRCT 21 314055 21
HBM 13 260603 1
RILY 24 109582 0
NE 20 474543 6
GSM 24 307425 5
NGM 22 202553 3
Average 19.1 241912 4.4

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 19.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $242 million. That figure was $466 million in PAR’s case. B. Riley Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ:RILY) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Horace Mann Educators Corporation (NYSE:HMN) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for PAR is 86.4. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 31.1% in 2021 through December 9th and beat the market again by 5.1 percentage points. Unfortunately PAR wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on PAR were disappointed as the stock returned -9.6% since the end of September (through 12/9) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as many of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

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