Hedge fund managers like David Einhorn, Dan Loeb, or Carl Icahn became billionaires through reaping large profits for their investors, which is why piggybacking their stock picks may provide us with significant returns as well. Many hedge funds, like Paul Singer’s Elliott Management, are pretty secretive, but we can still get some insights by analyzing their quarterly 13F filings. One of the most fertile grounds for large abnormal returns is hedge funds’ most popular small-cap picks, which are not so widely followed and often trade at a discount to their intrinsic value. In this article we will check out hedge fund activity in another small-cap stock: Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA).
Is Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA) a buy here? Investors who are in the know are taking a pessimistic view. The number of long hedge fund bets shrunk by 3 recently. LTRPA was in 25 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2016. There were 28 hedge funds in our database with LTRPA 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 KLX Inc (NASDAQ:KLXI), Coeur d’Alene Mines Corporation (NYSE:CDE), and Itron, Inc. (NASDAQ:ITRI) to gather more data points.
Follow Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:LTRPA)
Follow Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:LTRPA)
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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With all of this in mind, we’re going to take a look at the key action encompassing Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA).
What have hedge funds been doing with Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA)?
At Q3’s end, a total of 25 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a drop of 11% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Empyrean Capital Partners, managed by Michael A. Price and Amos Meron, holds the number one position in Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA). According to regulatory filings, the fund has a $67.6 million position in the stock, comprising 3.4% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is D E Shaw, led by David E. Shaw, holding a $63.3 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other members of the smart money that hold long positions comprise Curtis Macnguyen’s Ivory Capital (Investment Mgmt), Jeffrey Altman’s Owl Creek Asset Management and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.
Seeing as Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA) has faced a decline in interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there was a specific group of money managers who were dropping their positions entirely in the third quarter. Interestingly, Ryan Frick and Oliver Evans’s Dorsal Capital Management sold off the biggest stake of the “upper crust” of funds monitored by Insider Monkey, comprising close to $63.5 million in call options. Daniel S. Och’s fund, OZ Management, also cut its call options, worth about $11 million. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 3 funds in the third quarter.
Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA). These stocks are KLX Inc (NASDAQ:KLXI), Coeur d’Alene Mines Corporation (NYSE:CDE), Itron, Inc. (NASDAQ:ITRI), and Financial Engines Inc (NASDAQ:FNGN). This group of stocks’ market values resemble LTRPA’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| KLXI | 22 | 422767 | -1 |
| CDE | 26 | 286956 | 5 |
| ITRI | 19 | 447778 | 3 |
| FNGN | 13 | 48815 | 2 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 20 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $302 million. That figure was $479 million in LTRPA’s case. Coeur d’Alene Mines Corporation (NYSE:CDE) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Financial Engines Inc (NASDAQ:FNGN) is the least popular one with only 13 bullish hedge fund positions. Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA) 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 CDE might be a better candidate to consider a long position.
Disclosure: none.
