Is Synalloy Corporation (SYNL) A Good Stock To Buy?

The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. We have processed the filings of the more than 866 world-class investment firms that we track and now have access to the collective wisdom contained in these filings, which are based on their March 31st holdings, data that is available nowhere else. Should you consider Synalloy Corporation (NASDAQ:SYNL) for your portfolio? We’ll look to this invaluable collective wisdom for the answer.

Is SYNL a good stock to buy? Synalloy Corporation (NASDAQ:SYNL) shares haven’t seen a lot of action during the second quarter. Overall, hedge fund sentiment was unchanged. The stock was in 3 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2021. Our calculations also showed that SYNL isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings). The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as Cellectar Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:CLRB), LightPath Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:LPTH), and Capital Senior Living Corporation (NYSE:CSU) to gather more data points.

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

Heading into the second quarter of 2021, a total of 3 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 0% from the fourth quarter of 2020. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards SYNL over the last 23 quarters. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

The largest stake in Synalloy Corporation (NASDAQ:SYNL) was held by Renaissance Technologies, which reported holding $1.3 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by Royce & Associates with a $1 million position. The only other hedge fund that is bullish on the company was Minerva Advisors.

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 now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Synalloy Corporation (NASDAQ:SYNL) but similarly valued. These stocks are Cellectar Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:CLRB), LightPath Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:LPTH), Capital Senior Living Corporation (NYSE:CSU), BP Prudhoe Bay Royalty Trust (NYSE:BPT), Tuanche Limited (NASDAQ:TC), Great Elm Capital Corp. (NASDAQ:GECC), and FedNat Holding Co (NASDAQ:FNHC). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to SYNL’s market valuation.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $9 million. That figure was $3 million in SYNL’s case. Cellectar Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:CLRB) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Capital Senior Living Corporation (NYSE:CSU) is the least popular one with only 2 bullish hedge fund positions. Synalloy Corporation (NASDAQ:SYNL) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for SYNL is 26.2. 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 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 17.2% in 2021 through June 11th and still beat the market by 3.3 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on SYNL as the stock returned 30.1% since the end of the first quarter (through 6/11) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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