Is JYNT A Good Stock To Buy Now?

Insider Monkey has processed numerous 13F filings of hedge funds and successful value investors to create an extensive database of hedge fund holdings. The 13F filings show the hedge funds’ and successful investors’ positions as of the end of the third quarter. You can find articles about an individual hedge fund’s trades on numerous financial news websites. However, in this article we will take a look at their collective moves over the last 5 years and analyze what the smart money thinks of The Joint Corp. (NASDAQ:JYNT) based on that data.

Is JYNT a good stock to buy now? Hedge funds were turning bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund bets advanced by 1 lately. The Joint Corp. (NASDAQ:JYNT) was in 17 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2020. The all time high for this statistic is 16. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. Our calculations also showed that JYNT 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.

Why do we pay any attention at all to hedge fund sentiment? Our research has shown that a select group of hedge fund holdings outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by 66 percentage points since March 2017 (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 13% through November 17th. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

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. Now we’re going to view the recent hedge fund action encompassing The Joint Corp. (NASDAQ:JYNT).

Do Hedge Funds Think JYNT Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At the end of September, a total of 17 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 6% from the previous quarter. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in JYNT over the last 21 quarters. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

More specifically, Bandera Partners was the largest shareholder of The Joint Corp. (NASDAQ:JYNT), with a stake worth $29.3 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Bandera Partners was Nantahala Capital Management, which amassed a stake valued at $14.8 million. Skylands Capital, Royce & Associates, and Renaissance Technologies were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Bandera Partners allocated the biggest weight to The Joint Corp. (NASDAQ:JYNT), around 19.09% of its 13F portfolio. Skylands Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 2.16 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to JYNT.

As industrywide interest jumped, key money managers were breaking ground themselves. Old Well Partners, managed by Campbell Wilson, initiated the biggest position in The Joint Corp. (NASDAQ:JYNT). Old Well Partners had $1.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Noam Gottesman’s GLG Partners also initiated a $0.2 million position during the quarter.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as The Joint Corp. (NASDAQ:JYNT) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Global Water Resources, Inc. (NASDAQ:GWRS), Calithera Biosciences Inc (NASDAQ:CALA), Fiesta Restaurant Group Inc (NASDAQ:FRGI), Evelo Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:EVLO), HOOKIPA Pharma Inc. (NASDAQ:HOOK), Rimini Street, Inc. (NASDAQ:RMNI), and NextCure, Inc. (NASDAQ:NXTC). This group of stocks’ market values match JYNT’s market value.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 9.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $50 million. That figure was $69 million in JYNT’s case. Calithera Biosciences Inc (NASDAQ:CALA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Evelo Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:EVLO) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks The Joint Corp. (NASDAQ:JYNT) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for JYNT is 86. 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. 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 returned 30.7% in 2020 through December 14th but still managed to beat the market by 15.8 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on JYNT as the stock returned 49.1% since the end of September (through 12/14) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were clearly right about piling into this stock relative to other stocks with similar market capitalizations.

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