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 4 years and analyze what the smart money thinks of Quanterix Corporation (NASDAQ:QTRX) based on that data.
Is Quanterix Corporation (NASDAQ:QTRX) the right pick for your portfolio? The smart money is getting more optimistic. The number of long hedge fund positions improved by 2 recently. Our calculations also showed that QTRX isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video below for Q2 rankings). QTRX was in 10 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2019. There were 8 hedge funds in our database with QTRX holdings at the end of the previous quarter.
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research has shown that hedge funds’ small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the Russell 2000 ETFs by 40 percentage points since May 2014 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that underperformed the market by 10 percentage points annually between 2006 and 2017. Interestingly the margin of underperformance of these stocks has been increasing in recent years. Investors who are long the market and short these stocks would have returned more than 27% annually between 2015 and 2017. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 in our quarterly newsletter.
Kerr Neilson of Platinum Asset Management
We leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example Discover is offering this insane cashback card, so we look into shorting the stock. One of the most bullish analysts in America just put his money where his mouth is. He says, “I’m investing more today than I did back in early 2009.” So we check out his pitch. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. We even check out this option genius’ weekly trade ideas. This December we recommended Adams Energy based on an under-the-radar fund manager’s investor letter and the stock gained 20 percent. We’re going to take a glance at the fresh hedge fund action encompassing Quanterix Corporation (NASDAQ:QTRX).
What have hedge funds been doing with Quanterix Corporation (NASDAQ:QTRX)?
At the end of the third quarter, a total of 10 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 25% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in QTRX over the last 17 quarters. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
Among these funds, Royce & Associates held the most valuable stake in Quanterix Corporation (NASDAQ:QTRX), which was worth $11.2 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Millennium Management which amassed $10.5 million worth of shares. Park West Asset Management, Opaleye Management, and Platinum Asset Management were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Opaleye Management allocated the biggest weight to Quanterix Corporation (NASDAQ:QTRX), around 1.47% of its 13F portfolio. Park West Asset Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 0.33 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to QTRX.
As one would reasonably expect, key hedge funds have jumped into Quanterix Corporation (NASDAQ:QTRX) headfirst. Park West Asset Management, managed by Peter S. Park, created the biggest position in Quanterix Corporation (NASDAQ:QTRX). Park West Asset Management had $6.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. James A. Silverman’s Opaleye Management also made a $4.1 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new QTRX positions are George McCabe’s Portolan Capital Management, Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group, and Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management.
Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Quanterix Corporation (NASDAQ:QTRX). These stocks are America’s Car-Mart, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRMT), Everi Holdings Inc (NYSE:EVRI), Ellington Financial Inc. (NYSE:EFC), and Simulations Plus, Inc. (NASDAQ:SLP). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble QTRX’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| CRMT | 21 | 87866 | -2 |
| EVRI | 23 | 164371 | -1 |
| EFC | 7 | 46892 | -2 |
| SLP | 14 | 40148 | 5 |
| Average | 16.25 | 84819 | 0 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 16.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $85 million. That figure was $42 million in QTRX’s case. Everi Holdings Inc (NYSE:EVRI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Ellington Financial Inc. (NYSE:EFC) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Quanterix Corporation (NASDAQ:QTRX) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 37.4% in 2019 through the end of November and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 9.9 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on QTRX as the stock returned 15.3% during the first two months of Q4 and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
