Hedge Funds Are Warming Up To SSR Mining Inc. (SSRM)

Many prominent investors, including Warren Buffett, David Tepper and Stan Druckenmiller, have been cautious regarding the current bull market and missed out as the stock market reached another high in recent weeks. On the other hand, technology hedge funds weren’t timid and registered double digit market beating gains. Financials, energy and industrial stocks initially suffered the most but many of these stocks delivered strong returns since November and hedge funds actually increased their positions in these stocks. In this article we will find out how hedge fund sentiment towards SSR Mining Inc. (NASDAQ:SSRM) changed recently.

SSR Mining Inc. (NASDAQ:SSRM) was in 20 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of June. The all time high for this statistic is 22. SSRM investors should pay attention to an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds lately. There were 16 hedge funds in our database with SSRM holdings at the end of March. Our calculations also showed that SSRM isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).

In the financial world there are a large number of tools investors have at their disposal to grade stocks. A pair of the most under-the-radar tools are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outperform the broader indices by a solid amount. Insider Monkey’s monthly stock picks returned 185.4% since March 2017 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 79 percentage points (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

Paul Marshall of Marshall Wace

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium mining is one of the fastest growing industries right now, so we are checking out stock pitches like this emerging lithium stock. We go through lists like the 10 best EV stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our homepage. Now we’re going to view the latest hedge fund action encompassing SSR Mining Inc. (NASDAQ:SSRM).

Do Hedge Funds Think SSRM Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

Heading into the third quarter of 2021, a total of 20 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 25% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 18 hedge funds with a bullish position in SSRM a year ago. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were adding to their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Sprott Asset Management, managed by Eric Sprott, holds the most valuable position in SSR Mining Inc. (NASDAQ:SSRM). Sprott Asset Management has a $42 million position in the stock, comprising 2.4% of its 13F portfolio. On Sprott Asset Management’s heels is Renaissance Technologies, which holds a $41.9 million position; the fund has 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other peers with similar optimism comprise Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, John Paulson’s Paulson & Co and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position NewGen Asset Management allocated the biggest weight to SSR Mining Inc. (NASDAQ:SSRM), around 6.16% of its 13F portfolio. Sprott Asset Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 2.45 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to SSRM.

Consequently, key hedge funds were breaking ground themselves. Masters Capital Management, managed by Mike Masters, assembled the largest position in SSR Mining Inc. (NASDAQ:SSRM). Masters Capital Management had $12.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP also made a $5.9 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new SSRM positions are Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, and Ben Levine, Andrew Manuel and Stefan Renold’s LMR Partners.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to SSR Mining Inc. (NASDAQ:SSRM). These stocks are Tronox Holdings Plc (NYSE:TROX), Cassava Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:SAVA), Cornerstone OnDemand, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSOD), Apple Hospitality REIT Inc (NYSE:APLE), Taylor Morrison Home Corp (NYSE:TMHC), Bank of Hawaii Corporation (NYSE:BOH), and Haemonetics Corporation (NYSE:HAE). This group of stocks’ market values match SSRM’s market value.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 22.6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $301 million. That figure was $205 million in SSRM’s case. Tronox Holdings Plc (NYSE:TROX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Cassava Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:SAVA) is the least popular one with only 13 bullish hedge fund positions. SSR Mining Inc. (NASDAQ:SSRM) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for SSRM is 51.5. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 24% in 2021 through October 22nd and still beat the market by 1.6 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on SSRM as the stock returned 4.9% since the end of the second quarter (through 10/22) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.