Is Piper Jaffray Companies (PJC) A Good Stock To Buy?

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. Arrowstreet Capital, led by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell, initiated the most outsized position in Piper Jaffray Companies (NYSE:PJC). Arrowstreet Capital had $2.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Mike Vranos’s Ellington also made a $0.4 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The only other fund with a brand new PJC position is Gavin Saitowitz and Cisco J. del Valle’s Springbok Capital.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Piper Jaffray Companies (NYSE:PJC) but similarly valued. These stocks are Silver Spring Networks Inc (NYSE:SSNI), Pacific Premier Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:PPBI), Novocure Ltd (NASDAQ:NVCR), and Kelly Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:KELYA). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble PJC’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 10.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $34 million. That figure was $16 million in PJC’s case. Silver Spring Networks Inc (NYSE:SSNI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Novocure Ltd (NASDAQ:NVCR) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Piper Jaffray Companies (NYSE:PJC) is even less popular than NVCR. Considering that hedge funds aren’t fond of this stock in relation to other companies analyzed in this article, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and understand why the smart money isn’t behind this stock. This isn’t necessarily bad news. Although it is possible that hedge funds may think the stock is overpriced and view the stock as a short candidate, they may not be very familiar with the bullish thesis. In either case more research is warranted.