Where Do Hedge Funds Stand On Vicor Corp (VICR)?

In this article:

Our extensive research has shown that imitating the smart money can generate significant returns for retail investors, which is why we track nearly 900 active prominent money managers and analyze their quarterly 13F filings. The stocks that are heavily bought by hedge funds historically outperformed the market, though there is no shortage of high profile failures like hedge funds' 2018 losses in Facebook and Apple. Let’s take a closer look at what the funds we track think about Vicor Corp (NASDAQ:VICR) in this article.

Is Vicor Corp (NASDAQ:VICR) going to take off soon? The best stock pickers were getting more bullish. The number of long hedge fund positions advanced by 2 in recent months. Vicor Corp (NASDAQ:VICR) was in 20 hedge funds' portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 20. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. Our calculations also showed that VICR isn't among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).

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 115 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). That's why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

Adam Usdan of Trellus Management

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, pet market is growing at a 7% annual rate and is expected to reach $110 billion in 2021. So, we are checking out the 5 best stocks for animal lovers. We go through lists like the 15 best Jim Cramer stocks to identify the next Tesla that will deliver outsized returns. 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 homepage. With all of this in mind we're going to take a look at the fresh hedge fund action surrounding Vicor Corp (NASDAQ:VICR).

Do Hedge Funds Think VICR 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 11% from the fourth quarter of 2020. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in VICR over the last 23 quarters. So, let's check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

More specifically, Driehaus Capital was the largest shareholder of Vicor Corp (NASDAQ:VICR), with a stake worth $29.6 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing Driehaus Capital was Trellus Management Company, which amassed a stake valued at $11 million. Ararat Capital, G2 Investment Partners Management, and Alight 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 Trellus Management Company allocated the biggest weight to Vicor Corp (NASDAQ:VICR), around 5.72% of its 13F portfolio. Ararat Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 5.09 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to VICR.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, some big names have been driving this bullishness. Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, created the most outsized position in Vicor Corp (NASDAQ:VICR). Citadel Investment Group had $3.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Christopher Hillary's Roubaix Capital also made a $3.3 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new VICR investors: Michael Gelband's ExodusPoint Capital, Matthew Hulsizer's PEAK6 Capital Management, and Donald Sussman's Paloma Partners.

Let's now review hedge fund activity in other stocks - not necessarily in the same industry as Vicor Corp (NASDAQ:VICR) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Datto Holding Corp. (NYSE:MSP), Scientific Games Corp (NASDAQ:SGMS), Box, Inc. (NYSE:BOX), Stamps.com Inc. (NASDAQ:STMP), AAON, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAON), Sabra Health Care REIT Inc (NASDAQ:SBRA), and Ameris Bancorp (NASDAQ:ABCB). All of these stocks' market caps match VICR's market cap.

[table] Ticker, No of HFs with positions, Total Value of HF Positions (x1000), Change in HF Position MSP,14,2729336,-3 SGMS,23,785499,0 BOX,43,863055,12 STMP,32,578028,-6 AAON,16,47793,3 SBRA,21,112267,1 ABCB,16,101268,-2 Average,23.6,745321,0.7 [/table]

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 23.6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $745 million. That figure was $88 million in VICR's case. Box, Inc. (NYSE:BOX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Datto Holding Corp. (NYSE:MSP) is the least popular one with only 14 bullish hedge fund positions. Vicor Corp (NASDAQ:VICR) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for VICR is 47.3. 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 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. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on VICR as the stock returned 24.2% since the end of the first quarter (through 7/16) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

Get real-time email alerts: Follow Vicor Corp (NASDAQ:VICR)

Suggested Articles:

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

Advertisement