We at Insider Monkey have gone over 738 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 March 31st. In this article, we look at what those funds think of Blackbaud, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLKB) based on that data.
Blackbaud, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLKB) has experienced a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds of late. Our calculations also showed that BLKB isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
In the financial world there are a lot of gauges shareholders use to appraise publicly traded companies. Two of the most useful gauges are hedge fund and insider trading moves. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best investment managers can beat the broader indices by a solid margin (see the details here).
Let’s analyze the recent hedge fund action surrounding Blackbaud, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLKB).
What does smart money think about Blackbaud, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLKB)?
Heading into the second quarter of 2019, a total of 11 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -15% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards BLKB over the last 15 quarters. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in Blackbaud, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLKB) was held by Echo Street Capital Management, which reported holding $49.4 million worth of stock at the end of March. It was followed by GLG Partners with a $9.3 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Gotham Asset Management, Renaissance Technologies, and AQR Capital Management.
Judging by the fact that Blackbaud, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLKB) has witnessed a decline in interest from the smart money, it’s easy to see that there were a few money managers that slashed their full holdings in the third quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Robert Joseph Caruso’s Select Equity Group dropped the largest stake of all the hedgies tracked by Insider Monkey, comprising close to $22.1 million in stock, and David Goel and Paul Ferri’s Matrix Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $12.6 million worth. These moves are interesting, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 2 funds in the third quarter.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Blackbaud, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLKB). These stocks are Eagle Materials, Inc. (NYSE:EXP), ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:ACAD), Cushman & Wakefield plc (NYSE:CWK), and Armstrong World Industries, Inc. (NYSE:AWI). All of these stocks’ market caps match BLKB’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| EXP | 29 | 724390 | 4 |
| ACAD | 20 | 1311418 | 0 |
| CWK | 26 | 308713 | 13 |
| AWI | 25 | 521911 | -1 |
| Average | 25 | 716608 | 4 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $717 million. That figure was $72 million in BLKB’s case. Eagle Materials, Inc. (NYSE:EXP) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:ACAD) is the least popular one with only 20 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Blackbaud, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLKB) is even less popular than ACAD. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 6.2% in Q2 through June 19th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by nearly 3 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on BLKB, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 3.9% during the same time frame and outperformed the market as well.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
