Is AMK A Good Stock To Buy Now?

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 fund investors experienced strong gains on the back of a strong market performance, which certainly propelled them to adjust their equity holdings so as to maintain the desired risk profile. As a result, the relevancy of these public filings and their content is indisputable, as they may reveal numerous high-potential stocks. The following article will discuss the smart money sentiment towards AssetMark Financial Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AMK).

Is AMK a good stock to buy now? Investors who are in the know were becoming more confident. The number of bullish hedge fund bets increased by 4 recently. AssetMark Financial Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AMK) was in 10 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistics is 10. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. Our calculations also showed that AMK isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).

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

If you’d ask most traders, hedge funds are perceived as worthless, outdated financial tools of years past. While there are greater than 8000 funds trading today, Our experts hone in on the bigwigs of this club, around 850 funds. These investment experts preside over the lion’s share of all hedge funds’ total capital, and by following their highest performing investments, Insider Monkey has spotted a few investment strategies that have historically outrun Mr. Market. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points per annum since its inception in March 2017. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 13% since February 2017 (through November 17th) even though the market was up 65% during the same period. We just shared a list of 6 short targets in our latest quarterly update .

At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 15 best blue chip stocks to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our website. Keeping this in mind we’re going to take a peek at the latest hedge fund action encompassing AssetMark Financial Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AMK).

Do Hedge Funds Think AssetMark Financial Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AMK) Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At Q3’s end, a total of 10 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 67% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards AMK over the last 21 quarters. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were adding to their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Adage Capital Management, managed by Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson, holds the number one position in AssetMark Financial Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AMK). Adage Capital Management has a $20.1 million position in the stock, comprising 0.1% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Azora Capital, led by Ravi Chopra, holding a $10.1 million position; 1.3% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining professional money managers that hold long positions encompass Jeffrey Talpins’s Element Capital Management, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Azora Capital allocated the biggest weight to AssetMark Financial Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AMK), around 1.27% of its 13F portfolio. Element Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.69 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to AMK.

As aggregate interest increased, some big names have jumped into AssetMark Financial Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AMK) headfirst. Azora Capital, managed by Ravi Chopra, initiated the most outsized position in AssetMark Financial Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AMK). Azora Capital had $10.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Jeffrey Talpins’s Element Capital Management also initiated a $2.7 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Greg Eisner’s Engineers Gate Manager and Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as AssetMark Financial Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AMK) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP), Spirit Airlines Incorporated (NASDAQ:SAVE), Texas Capital Bancshares Inc (NASDAQ:TCBI), Paramount Group Inc (NYSE:PGRE), Boise Cascade Co (NYSE:BCC), Liberty Latin America Ltd. (NASDAQ:LILAK), and Verra Mobility Corporation (NASDAQ:VRRM). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to AMK’s market value.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 23.9 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $164 million. That figure was $38 million in AMK’s case. Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Paramount Group Inc (NYSE:PGRE) is the least popular one with only 17 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks AssetMark Financial Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AMK) is even less popular than PGRE. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for AMK is 39. 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. Hedge funds clearly dropped the ball on AMK as the stock delivered strong returns, though hedge funds’ consensus picks still generated respectable returns. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.3% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10 percentage points. These stocks gained 32.9% in 2020 through December 8th and still beat the market by 16.2 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on AMK as the stock returned 16.2% since Q3 (through December 8th) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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