Where Do Hedge Funds Stand On Bridge Bancorp, Inc. (BDGE)?

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 Bridge Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:BDGE).

Bridge Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:BDGE) has experienced an increase in enthusiasm from smart money recently. Bridge Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:BDGE) was in 12 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2020. The all time high for this statistics is 12. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. Our calculations also showed that BDGE 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.

Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research was able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 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.

Peter Rathjens of Arrowstreet CapitalPeter RathjenS

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 take a look at the fresh hedge fund action regarding Bridge Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:BDGE).

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

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2020, a total of 12 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 33% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in BDGE over the last 21 quarters. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Matthew Lindenbaum’s Basswood Capital has the biggest position in Bridge Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:BDGE), worth close to $34.8 million, corresponding to 2.9% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Renaissance Technologies,  which holds a $6.8 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other members of the smart money that hold long positions include Joshua Nash’s Ulysses Management, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Basswood Capital allocated the biggest weight to Bridge Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:BDGE), around 2.89% of its 13F portfolio. Ulysses Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.72 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to BDGE.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, some big names have jumped into Bridge Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:BDGE) headfirst. Millennium Management, managed by Israel Englander, assembled the largest position in Bridge Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:BDGE). Millennium Management had $1.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP also initiated a $0.6 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are James Dondero’s Highland Capital Management and Gavin Saitowitz and Cisco J. del Valle’s Prelude Capital (previously Springbok Capital).

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Bridge Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:BDGE) but similarly valued. These stocks are Crawford & Company (NYSE:CRD), Vishay Precision Group Inc (NYSE:VPG), Wanda Sports Group Company Limited (NASDAQ:WSG), DURECT Corporation (NASDAQ:DRRX), AGM Group Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:AGMH), RISE Education Cayman Ltd (NASDAQ:REDU), and Profound Medical Corp. (NASDAQ:PROF). This group of stocks’ market values resemble BDGE’s market value.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 7.7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $35 million. That figure was $55 million in BDGE’s case. Vishay Precision Group Inc (NYSE:VPG) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand AGM Group Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:AGMH) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Bridge Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:BDGE) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for BDGE is 77.3. 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 gained 32.9% in 2020 through December 8th and still beat the market by 16.2 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on BDGE as the stock returned 41.3% since the end of Q3 (through 12/8) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

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