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 Habit Restaurants Inc (NASDAQ:HABT).
Habit Restaurants Inc (NASDAQ:HABT) has seen a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds recently. HABT was in 13 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 14 hedge funds in our database with HABT positions at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare HABT to other stocks including Johnson Outdoors Inc. (NASDAQ:JOUT), Horizon Global Corp (NYSE:HZN), and Invacare Corporation (NYSE:IVC) to get a better sense of its popularity.
Follow Habit Restaurants Inc. (NASDAQ:HABT)
Follow Habit Restaurants Inc. (NASDAQ:HABT)
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.
koss13/Shutterstock.com
How have hedgies been trading Habit Restaurants Inc (NASDAQ:HABT)?
At Q3’s end, a total of 13 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, down by 7% from the second quarter of 2016. By comparison, 10 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in HABT heading into this year. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, John Burbank’s Passport Capital has the number one position in Habit Restaurants Inc (NASDAQ:HABT), worth close to $14 million. The second most bullish fund manager is GMT Capital, led by Thomas E. Claugus, holding a $8.4 million position. Other peers that hold long positions contain Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies, Joseph A. Jolson’s Harvest Capital Strategies and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group. 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.
Seeing as Habit Restaurants Inc (NASDAQ:HABT) has encountered falling interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s easy to see that there is a sect of funds who sold off their positions entirely by the end of the third quarter. Interestingly, Steven Boyd’s Armistice Capital said goodbye to the biggest position of all the hedgies tracked by Insider Monkey, comprising an estimated $3.9 million in stock. Benjamin A. Smith’s fund, Laurion Capital Management, also said goodbye to its stock, about $3.3 million worth.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Habit Restaurants Inc (NASDAQ:HABT). These stocks are Johnson Outdoors Inc. (NASDAQ:JOUT), Horizon Global Corp (NYSE:HZN), Invacare Corporation (NYSE:IVC), and Versartic Inc (NASDAQ:VSAR). All of these stocks’ market caps are similar to HABT’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| JOUT | 6 | 11001 | 2 |
| HZN | 19 | 73027 | 6 |
| IVC | 15 | 79085 | 1 |
| VSAR | 15 | 123488 | 9 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 14 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $72 million. That figure was $42 million in HABT’s case. Horizon Global Corp (NYSE:HZN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Johnson Outdoors Inc. (NASDAQ:JOUT) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Habit Restaurants Inc (NASDAQ:HABT) 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 HZN might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.
Disclosure: None
