Hedge Funds Have Never Been This Bullish On Identiv, Inc. (INVE)

Insider Monkey has processed numerous 13F filings of hedge funds and successful value investors to create an extensive database of hedge fund holdings. The 13F filings show the hedge funds’ and successful investors’ positions as of the end of the third quarter. You can find articles about an individual hedge fund’s trades on numerous financial news websites. However, in this article we will take a look at their collective moves over the last 5 years and analyze what the smart money thinks of Identiv, Inc. (NASDAQ:INVE) based on that data.

Identiv, Inc. (NASDAQ:INVE) was in 8 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistics is 6. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. INVE has seen an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers recently. There were 2 hedge funds in our database with INVE positions at the end of the second quarter. Our calculations also showed that INVE isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

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 113% since March 2017 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 66 percentage points. Our short strategy outperformed the S&P 500 short ETFs by 20 percentage points annually (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

Peter Rathjens of Arrowstreet Capital

At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 15 best blue chip stocks to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. 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 website. Now we’re going to take a glance at the recent hedge fund action surrounding Identiv, Inc. (NASDAQ:INVE).

What have hedge funds been doing with Identiv, Inc. (NASDAQ:INVE)?

At Q3’s end, a total of 8 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 300% from the second quarter of 2020. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards INVE over the last 21 quarters. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, George McCabe’s Portolan Capital Management has the largest position in Identiv, Inc. (NASDAQ:INVE), worth close to $3.6 million, comprising 0.4% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Royce & Associates, led by Chuck Royce, holding a $3.5 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other members of the smart money that hold long positions consist of Renaissance Technologies, Raymond J. Harbert’s Harbert Management and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Harbert Management allocated the biggest weight to Identiv, Inc. (NASDAQ:INVE), around 2.4% of its 13F portfolio. Portolan Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 0.41 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to INVE.

As aggregate interest increased, specific money managers have jumped into Identiv, Inc. (NASDAQ:INVE) headfirst. Portolan Capital Management, managed by George McCabe, initiated the most outsized position in Identiv, Inc. (NASDAQ:INVE). Portolan Capital Management had $3.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Raymond J. Harbert’s Harbert Management also made a $2 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, Nick Thakore’s Diametric Capital, and Gavin Saitowitz and Cisco J. del Valle’s Prelude Capital (previously Springbok Capital).

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Identiv, Inc. (NASDAQ:INVE). We will take a look at Bankwell Financial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:BWFG), Orgenesis Inc. (NASDAQ:ORGS), Vista Gold Corp. (NYSE:VGZ), InflaRx N.V. (NASDAQ:IFRX), Sierra Oncology, Inc. (NASDAQ:SRRA), La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company (NASDAQ:LJPC), and Willis Lease Finance Corporation (NASDAQ:WLFC). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to INVE’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 5.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $32 million. That figure was $13 million in INVE’s case. Sierra Oncology, Inc. (NASDAQ:SRRA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Orgenesis Inc. (NASDAQ:ORGS) is the least popular one with only 2 bullish hedge fund positions. Identiv, Inc. (NASDAQ:INVE) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for INVE is 73.3. 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 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.3% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10 percentage points. These stocks gained 31.6% in 2020 through December 2nd and still beat the market by 16 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on INVE as the stock returned 22.4% since the end of Q3 (through 12/2) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

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