How Bridgepoint Education Inc (BPI) Stacks Up Against Its Peers

The Insider Monkey team has completed processing the quarterly 13F filings for the September quarter submitted by the hedge funds and other money managers included in our extensive database. Most hedge funds have been producing disappointing net returns in recent years, however that was partly due to the poor performance of small-cap stocks in general. Well, small-cap stocks finally turned the corner and have been beating the large-cap stocks by more than 10 percentage points over the last 5 months.This means the relevancy of hedge funds’ public filings became inarguable, as they may reveal numerous high-potential stocks. The following article will discuss the smart money sentiment towards Bridgepoint Education Inc (NYSE:BPI) .

Is Bridgepoint Education Inc (NYSE:BPI) undervalued? The smart money is definitely buying. The number of bullish hedge fund bets that are revealed through the 13F filings went up by 1 in recent months. There were 11 hedge funds in our database with BPI positions at the end of June. At the end of this article we will also compare BPI to other stocks including Natural Health Trends Corp. (NASDAQ:NHTC), Tuniu Corp (NASDAQ:TOUR), and Siliconware Precision Industries (ADR) (NASDAQ:SPIL) to get a better sense of its popularity.

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

Keeping this in mind, let’s review the recent action surrounding Bridgepoint Education Inc (NYSE:BPI).

Hedge fund activity in Bridgepoint Education Inc (NYSE:BPI)

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 12 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 9% from the previous quarter. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in BPI over the last 5 quarters. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Nathaniel August’s Mangrove Partners has the biggest position in Bridgepoint Education Inc (NYSE:BPI), worth close to $16.2 million, corresponding to 3.8% of its total 13F portfolio. On Mangrove Partners’s heels is Nantahala Capital Management, led by Wilmot B. Harkey and Daniel Mack, which holds a $11.4 million position; the fund has 1.4% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other peers that hold long positions consist of Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, D. E. Shaw’s one of the biggest hedge funds in the world and Michael Kao’s Akanthos Capital. We should note that two of these hedge funds (Mangrove Partners and Nantahala Capital Management) are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.

As industrywide interest jumped, key money managers have jumped into Bridgepoint Education Inc (NYSE:BPI) headfirst. Akanthos Capital, led by Michael Kao, assembled the most valuable position in Bridgepoint Education Inc (NYSE:BPI). Akanthos Capital had $1.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Brian Gaines’s Springhouse Capital Management also made a $0.3 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The only other fund with a brand new BPI position is Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Bridgepoint Education Inc (NYSE:BPI). These stocks are Natural Health Trends Corp. (NASDAQ:NHTC), Tuniu Corp (NASDAQ:TOUR), Siliconware Precision Industries (ADR) (NASDAQ:SPIL), and Avid Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVID). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble BPI’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 10 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $41 million. That figure was $43 million in BPI’s case. Avid Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVID) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Siliconware Precision Industries (ADR) (NASDAQ:SPIL) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Bridgepoint Education Inc (NYSE:BPI) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. We are also intrigued by the investments made by two of the best performing hedge funds. That’s why we think it is a good idea to research BPI and potentially include in your portfolio.