Control4 Corp (CTRL): How It Stacks Up Against Its Peers

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 funds have been producing disappointing net returns in recent years, however that was partly due to the poor performance of small-cap stocks in general. Well, small-cap stocks finally turned the corner and have been beating the large-cap stocks by more than 10 percentage points over the last 5 months.This means the relevancy of hedge funds’ public filings became inarguable, as they may reveal numerous high-potential stocks. The following article will discuss the smart money sentiment towards Control4 Corp (NASDAQ:CTRL).

Is Control4 Corp (NASDAQ:CTRL) a buy at the moment? Prominent investors are indeed taking a bullish view. The number of long hedge fund bets that are revealed through 13F filings increased by 2 recently. The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as ASA Gold and Precious Metals Ltd (NYSE:ASA), Ascent Capital Group Inc (NASDAQ:ASCMA), and Care.com Inc (NYSE:CRCM) to gather more data points.

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

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What does the smart money think about Control4 Corp (NASDAQ:CTRL)?

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 12 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a rise of 20% from the second quarter of 2016, and the third straight quarter with a rise in hedgie ownership of the stock. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards CTRL over the last 5 quarters. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Odey Asset Management Group, led by Crispin Odey, holds the biggest position in Control4 Corp (NASDAQ:CTRL). Odey Asset Management Group has a $15.5 million position in the stock, comprising 1.1% of its 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is P2 Capital Partners, led by Claus Moller, holding a $10 million position; the fund has 1.6% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining hedge funds and institutional investors that hold long positions comprise Charles Paquelet’s Skylands Capital, Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies, and David E. Shaw’s D E Shaw. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds, which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-micro-cap stocks.

Now, specific money managers have jumped into Control4 Corp (NASDAQ:CTRL) headfirst. Coe Capital Management, led by Mark Coe, assembled the most outsized position in Control4 Corp (NASDAQ:CTRL). Coe Capital Management had $1.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Millennium Management , one of the 10 largest hedge funds in the world, also initiated a $1.5 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new CTRL positions are Peter Muller’s PDT Partners, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Control4 Corp (NASDAQ:CTRL) but similarly valued. We will take a look at ASA Gold and Precious Metals Ltd (NYSE:ASA), Ascent Capital Group Inc (NASDAQ:ASCMA), Care.com Inc (NYSE:CRCM), and America’s Car-Mart, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRMT). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble CTRL’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 10 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $63 million. That figure was $39 million in CTRL’s case. Ascent Capital Group Inc (NASDAQ:ASCMA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand ASA Gold and Precious Metals Ltd (NYSE:ASA) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Control4 Corp (NASDAQ:CTRL) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard ASCMA might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in, but CTRL is one to watch.

Disclosure: None