The 700+ hedge funds and money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the third quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of September 30. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund positions. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards Atlantic Capital Bancshares Inc (NASDAQ:ACBI).
Atlantic Capital Bancshares Inc (NASDAQ:ACBI) shares didn’t see a lot of action during the third quarter. Overall, hedge fund sentiment was unchanged. The stock was in 8 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2016. At the end of this article we will also compare ACBI to other stocks including Regenxbio Inc (NASDAQ:RGNX), U.S. Lime & Minerals Inc. (NASDAQ:USLM), and Videocon d2h Ltd – ADR (NASDAQ:VDTH) 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.
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How are hedge funds trading Atlantic Capital Bancshares Inc (NASDAQ:ACBI)?
Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 8 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, unchanged from the second quarter of 2016. By comparison, 8 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in ACBI heading into this year. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes significantly (or already accumulated large positions).
When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Michael Price’s MFP Investors has the number one position in Atlantic Capital Bancshares Inc (NASDAQ:ACBI), worth close to $14.3 million, corresponding to 1.9% of its total 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is Joshua Nash of Ulysses Management holding a $14.1 million position; 1.6% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other hedge funds and institutional investors that are bullish contain Mark Lee’s Forest Hill Capital, Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies, one of the largest hedge funds in the world, and John D. Gillespie’s Prospector Partners. We should note that two of these hedge funds (MFP Investors and Ulysses 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.
Earlier we told you that the aggregate hedge fund interest in the stock was unchanged and we view this as a negative development. Even though there weren’t any hedge funds dumping their holdings during the third quarter, there weren’t any hedge funds initiating brand new positions. This indicates that hedge funds, at the very best, perceive this stock as dead money and they haven’t identified any viable catalysts that can attract investor attention.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Atlantic Capital Bancshares Inc (NASDAQ:ACBI). We will take a look at Regenxbio Inc (NASDAQ:RGNX), U.S. Lime & Minerals Inc. (NASDAQ:USLM), Videocon d2h Ltd – ADR (NASDAQ:VDTH), and United Insurance Holdings Corp.(NDA) (NASDAQ:UIHC). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble ACBI’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| RGNX | 13 | 80918 | 2 |
| USLM | 4 | 18637 | -1 |
| VDTH | 11 | 99748 | -3 |
| UIHC | 15 | 30406 | 5 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 11 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $57 million. That figure was $37 million in ACBI’s case. United Insurance Holdings Corp.(NDA) (NASDAQ:UIHC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand U.S. Lime & Minerals Inc. (NASDAQ:USLM) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Atlantic Capital Bancshares Inc (NASDAQ:ACBI) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard UIHC might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.
Disclosure: None