Do you like to follow the buying trends of smart money-investors?
These investors include institutional investors, such as hedge fund, mutual fund, and pension fund managers. Their specific knowledge makes their trades interesting to analysts and other investors.
To illustrate this, we ran a screen on the financial sector for those stocks with bullish sentiment from the smart money. We began by finding financial stocks with overall market bullishness, rallying above their 20-day, 50-day, and 200-day moving averages.
We then screened for those with significant net institutional purchases over the current quarter. These numbers both indicate that smart money-investors are generally positive on these names.
Business section: investing ideas
Below are the stocks that were sifted out with this screen. These financial stocks are currently rallying above their 20-day, 50-day, and 200-day moving averages. They have also seen strong net buying from institutional investors.
Do you think these names will outperform, as the smart money expects? (Click here to access free, interactive tools to analyze these ideas.)
1. First Merchants
2. Bridge Capital Holdings operates as the bank holding company for Bridge Bank, National Association, which provides commercial and retail banking services to business professionals, retail customers, and small- and medium-sized commercial businesses in California. Its market cap is $227.07 million, with a most recent closing price of $14.87. The stock is currently trading 3.45% above its 20-day SMA, 10.51% above its 50-day SMA, and 32.59% above its 200-day SMA. Net institutional purchases in the current quarter total 1.5 million shares, which represent about 21.46% of the company's float of 6.99 million shares.
3. Texas Capital BancShares operates as the holding company for Texas Capital Bank, National Association, which provides various banking products and services for commercial and high-net-worth customers in Texas. Its market cap is $1.44 billion, with a most recent closing price of $38.02. The stock is currently trading 4.53% above its 20-day SMA, 7.64% above its 50-day SMA, and 27.47% above its 200-day SMA. Net institutional purchases in the current quarter total 2.6 million shares, which represent about 7.12% of the company's float of 36.5 million shares.
4. Symetra Financial Corporation operates as a financial-services company in the life insurance industry in the U.S. Its market cap is $1.42 billion, with a most recent closing price of $11.99. The stock is currently trading 1.94% above its 20-day SMA, 5.32% above its 50-day SMA, and 21.21% above its 200-day SMA. Net institutional purchases in the current quarter total 16.1 million shares, which represent about 11.73% of the company's float of 137.26 million shares.
5. BofI Holding
6. Monmouth Real Estate Investment
7. American Capital Agency
8. Equity One engages in the ownership, management, acquisition, renovation, and development of neighborhood and community shopping centers in the U.S. Its market cap is $2.4 billion, with a most recent closing price of $20.75. The stock is currently trading 0.24% above its 20-day SMA, 3.73% above its 50-day SMA, and 17.74% above its 200-day SMA. Net institutional purchases in the current quarter total 4.8 million shares, which represent about 8.53% of the company's float of 56.3 million shares.
9. Kennedy-Wilson Holdings operates as a diversified real-estate company that provides investment and real-estate services in the U.S. and Japan. Its market cap is $728.59 million, with a most recent closing price of $14.08. The stock is currently trading 1.12% above its 20-day SMA, 2.68% above its 50-day SMA, and 16.2% above its 200-day SMA. Net institutional purchases in the current quarter total 2.1 million shares, which represent about 6.54% of the company's float of 32.1 million shares.
10. Education Realty Trust
Interactive Chart: Press play to compare changes in analyst ratings over the last two years for the stocks mentioned above. Analyst ratings sourced from Zacks Investment Research.
