As we already know from media reports and hedge fund investor letters, many hedge funds lost money in the third quarter, blaming macroeconomic conditions and unpredictable events that hit several sectors, with healthcare among them. Nevertheless, most investors decided to stick to their bullish theses and their long-term focus allows us to profit from the recent declines. In particular, let’s take a look at what hedge funds think about Manchester United PLC (NYSE:MANU) in this article.
Is Manchester United PLC (NYSE:MANU) worth your attention right now? Prominent investors may be becoming less confident, although they still amassed over 13% of the company’s outstanding stock at the end of September. Nevertheless, the number of long hedge fund bets went down by 1 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 JinkoSolar Holding Co., Ltd. (NYSE:JKS), CVR Partners LP (NYSE:UAN), and Sierra Wireless, Inc. (USA) (NASDAQ:SWIR) to gather more data points.
According to most stock holders, hedge funds are assumed to be slow, outdated financial vehicles of yesteryear. While there are more than 8000 funds trading at the moment, We look at the aristocrats of this group, about 700 funds. Most estimates calculate that this group of people have their hands on the lion’s share of all hedge funds’ total capital, and by keeping an eye on their inimitable investments, Insider Monkey has come up with various investment strategies that have historically defeated the broader indices. Insider Monkey’s small-cap hedge fund strategy beat the S&P 500 index by 12 percentage points a year for a decade in their back tests.
With all of this in mind, we’re going to analyze the key action encompassing Manchester United PLC (NYSE:MANU).
How have hedgies been trading Manchester United PLC (NYSE:MANU)?
At the Q3’s end, a total of 9 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, whose total value stood at $93 million. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Daniel Lascano’s Lomas Capital Management has the largest position in Manchester United PLC (NYSE:MANU), worth close to $11.3 million, comprising 2% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Morris Mark’s Mark Asset Management, with a $5.4 million position; the fund has 1.6% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other professional money managers with similar optimism contain D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Charles Clough’s Clough Capital Partners, and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.
Due to the fact that Manchester United PLC (NYSE:MANU) has witnessed a falling interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s safe to say that there was a specific group of funds that decided to sell off their entire stakes last quarter. At the top of the heap, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management cut the largest stake of the “upper crust” of funds tracked by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $0.3 million in stock, followed by Gavin Saitowitz and Cisco J. del Valle’s fund, Springbok Capital, which dumped around $0.1 million worth of shares.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Manchester United PLC (NYSE:MANU). We will take a look at JinkoSolar Holding Co., Ltd. (NYSE:JKS), CVR Partners LP (NYSE:UAN), Sierra Wireless, Inc. (USA) (NASDAQ:SWIR), and Cynosure, Inc. (NASDAQ:CYNO). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble MANU’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| JKS | 6 | 46179 | -6 |
| UAN | 5 | 2100 | 0 |
| SWIR | 9 | 17904 | 0 |
| CYNO | 18 | 77202 | 3 |
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 $36 million. Cynosure, Inc. (NASDAQ:CYNO) is the most popular stock in this table with a total of 18 funds disclosing long positions. On the other hand CVR Partners LP (NYSE:UAN) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Manchester United PLC (NYSE:MANU) 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 CYNO might be a better candidate to consider a long position.
