Does Atlantic Capital Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACBI) represent a good buying opportunity at the moment? Let’s quickly check the hedge fund interest towards the company. Hedge fund firms constantly search out bright intellectuals and highly-experienced employees and throw away millions of dollars on satellite photos and other research activities, so it is no wonder why they tend to generate millions in profits each year. It is also true that some hedge fund players fail inconceivably on some occasions, but net net their stock picks have been generating superior risk-adjusted returns on average over the years.
Is Atlantic Capital Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACBI) the right pick for your portfolio? Money managers are getting less optimistic. The number of long hedge fund bets were cut by 2 lately. Our calculations also showed that acbi isn't among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
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 has shown that hedge funds' large-cap stock picks indeed failed to beat the market between 1999 and 2016. However, we were able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the market by 40 percentage points since May 2014 through May 30, 2019 (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 30.9% through May 30, 2019. That's why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
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Michael Price of MFP Investors[/caption]
We're going to take a gander at the recent hedge fund action regarding Atlantic Capital Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACBI).
What does smart money think about Atlantic Capital Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACBI)?
At Q1's end, a total of 12 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -14% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 15 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in ACBI a year ago. So, let's find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
The largest stake in Atlantic Capital Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACBI) was held by Mendon Capital Advisors, which reported holding $21.3 million worth of stock at the end of March. It was followed by MFP Investors with a $16.9 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Elizabeth Park Capital Management, Renaissance Technologies, and D E Shaw.