Hedge Funds Have Never Been This Bullish On Brightcove Inc (BCOV)

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. We at Insider Monkey have plowed through 752 13F filings that hedge funds and well-known value 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 Brightcove Inc (NASDAQ:BCOV).

Is Brightcove Inc (NASDAQ:BCOV) a cheap investment now? Prominent investors are becoming hopeful. The number of bullish hedge fund positions rose by 1 recently. Our calculations also showed that BCOV isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video below for Q2 rankings). BCOV was in 19 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2019. There were 18 hedge funds in our database with BCOV holdings at the end of the previous quarter.
5 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research has shown that hedge funds’ large-cap stock picks indeed failed to beat the market between 1999 and 2016. However, we were able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the Russell 2000 ETFs by 40 percentage points since May 2014 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that’ll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 27.8% through November 21, 2019. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

David Harding

David Harding of Winton Capital Management

Unlike the largest US hedge funds that are convinced Dow will soar past 40,000 or the world’s most bearish hedge fund that’s more convinced than ever that a crash is coming, our long-short investment strategy doesn’t rely on bull or bear markets to deliver double digit returns. We only rely on the best performing hedge funds‘ buy/sell signals. We’re going to review the recent hedge fund action encompassing Brightcove Inc (NASDAQ:BCOV).

How are hedge funds trading Brightcove Inc (NASDAQ:BCOV)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 19 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 6% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in BCOV over the last 17 quarters. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

The largest stake in Brightcove Inc (NASDAQ:BCOV) was held by Trigran Investments, which reported holding $37 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Tenzing Global Investors with a $31.7 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Archon Capital Management, Renaissance Technologies, and Millennium Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Tenzing Global Investors allocated the biggest weight to Brightcove Inc (NASDAQ:BCOV), around 16.3% of its 13F portfolio. Trigran Investments is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 7 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to BCOV.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Winton Capital Management, managed by David Harding, established the most valuable position in Brightcove Inc (NASDAQ:BCOV). Winton Capital Management had $1.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Michael Gelband’s ExodusPoint Capital also initiated a $0.1 million position during the quarter. The only other fund with a brand new BCOV position is Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Brightcove Inc (NASDAQ:BCOV). We will take a look at Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (NYSE:HVT), Sohu.com Limited (NASDAQ:SOHU), 111, Inc. (NASDAQ:YI), and Magenta Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:MGTA). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to BCOV’s market value.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
HVT 12 63771 3
SOHU 13 77264 4
YI 2 3771 -1
MGTA 9 49838 1
Average 9 48661 1.75

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 9 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $49 million. That figure was $139 million in BCOV’s case. Sohu.com Limited (NASDAQ:SOHU) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand 111, Inc. (NASDAQ:YI) is the least popular one with only 2 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Brightcove Inc (NASDAQ:BCOV) is more popular among hedge funds. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 37.4% in 2019 through the end of November and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 9.9 percentage points. Unfortunately BCOV wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on BCOV were disappointed as the stock returned -14.7% during the first two months of the fourth quarter and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds as 70 percent of these stocks already outperformed the market in Q4.

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