Where Do Hedge Funds Stand On Vocera Communications Inc (VCRA)?

A whopping number of 13F filings filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been processed by Insider Monkey so that individual investors can look at the overall hedge fund sentiment towards the stocks included in their watchlists. These freshly-submitted public filings disclose money managers’ equity positions as of the end of the three-month period that ended March 31st, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment on Vocera Communications Inc (NYSE:VCRA).

Hedge fund interest in Vocera Communications Inc (NYSE:VCRA) shares was flat at the end of last quarter. This is usually a negative indicator. Our calculations also showed that VCRA isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings). At the end of this article we will also compare VCRA to other stocks including Simulations Plus, Inc. (NASDAQ:SLP), Encore Capital Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:ECPG), and Designer Brands Inc. (NYSE:DBI) to get a better sense of its popularity.

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

Heading into the second quarter of 2021, a total of 20 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 0% from the previous quarter. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in VCRA over the last 23 quarters. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

Among these funds, Renaissance Technologies held the most valuable stake in Vocera Communications Inc (NYSE:VCRA), which was worth $26.2 million at the end of the fourth quarter. On the second spot was D E Shaw which amassed $21.2 million worth of shares. No Street Capital, Two Sigma Advisors, and Intrinsic Edge Capital 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 No Street Capital allocated the biggest weight to Vocera Communications Inc (NYSE:VCRA), around 2.11% of its 13F portfolio. G2 Investment Partners Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 0.74 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to VCRA.

Judging by the fact that Vocera Communications Inc (NYSE:VCRA) has faced declining sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there exists a select few hedgies who sold off their entire stakes by the end of the first quarter. Intriguingly, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group dumped the biggest stake of the 750 funds tracked by Insider Monkey, comprising about $69.7 million in stock. Michael A. Price and Amos Meron’s fund, Empyrean Capital Partners, also sold off its stock, about $15.3 million worth. These moves are important to note, as total hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Vocera Communications Inc (NYSE:VCRA) but similarly valued. These stocks are Simulations Plus, Inc. (NASDAQ:SLP), Encore Capital Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:ECPG), Designer Brands Inc. (NYSE:DBI), Safety Insurance Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SAFT), Stride, Inc. (NYSE:LRN), Matthews International Corp (NASDAQ:MATW), and Kosmos Energy Ltd (NYSE:KOS). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to VCRA’s market valuation.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 14.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $69 million. That figure was $120 million in VCRA’s case. Encore Capital Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:ECPG) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Kosmos Energy Ltd (NYSE:KOS) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Vocera Communications Inc (NYSE:VCRA) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for VCRA is 85. 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 23.8% in 2021 through July 16th and still beat the market by 7.7 percentage points. Unfortunately VCRA wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on VCRA were disappointed as the stock returned 4.3% since the end of the first quarter (through 7/16) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

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