Hedge Funds Are Dumping CalAmp Corp. (CAMP)

The 700+ hedge funds and money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the third quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of September 30. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund positions. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards CalAmp Corp. (NASDAQ:CAMP) .

CalAmp Corp. (NASDAQ:CAMP) was in 11 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2016. CAMP investors should be aware of a decrease in hedge fund sentiment recently. There were 17 hedge funds in our database with CAMP holdings at the end of the previous quarter. 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 Stoneridge, Inc. (NYSE:SRI), Actua Corp (NASDAQ:ACTA), and SciClone Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCLN) to gather more data points.

We care about hedge fund sentiment because historically hedge funds’ stock picks delivered strong risk adjusted returns. There are certain segments of the market where hedge funds’ stock picks performed much better than its benchmarks. For instance, the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks among the best performing hedge funds returned 18% over the last 12 months outpacing S&P 500 Index by more than 10 percentage points. We developed this strategy 2.5 years ago and started sharing its picks in our quarterly newsletter. It bested the S&P 500 Index ETFs by delivering a solid 39% vs. 22% gain for its benchmarks.

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Now, we’re going to take a look at the new action surrounding CalAmp Corp. (NASDAQ:CAMP).

Hedge fund activity in CalAmp Corp. (NASDAQ:CAMP)

At Q3’s end, a total of 11 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -35% from the second quarter of 2016. On the other hand, there were a total of 16 hedge funds with a bullish position in CAMP at the beginning of this year. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Renaissance Technologies, one of the largest hedge funds in the world, holds the most valuable position in CalAmp Corp. (NASDAQ:CAMP). Renaissance Technologies has a $7.4 million position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is McKinley Capital Management, led by Robert B. Gillam, holding a $6.1 million position; 0.2% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining hedge funds and institutional investors with similar optimism comprise Paul Hondros’s AlphaOne Capital Partners, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management. 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-microcap stocks.

Due to the fact that CalAmp Corp. (NASDAQ:CAMP) has faced falling interest from the smart money, it’s easy to see that there lies a certain “tier” of hedge funds that elected to cut their entire stakes heading into Q4. Mark Broach’s fund, Manatuck Hill Partners, dropped its stock, about $1.5 million worth.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as CalAmp Corp. (NASDAQ:CAMP) but similarly valued. These stocks are Stoneridge, Inc. (NYSE:SRI), Actua Corp (NASDAQ:ACTA), SciClone Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCLN), and XO Group Inc (NYSE:XOXO). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble CAMP’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 17 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $78 million. That figure was $27 million in CAMP’s case. Stoneridge, Inc. (NYSE:SRI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Actua Corp (NASDAQ:ACTA) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. CalAmp Corp. (NASDAQ:CAMP) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard SRI might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.