Hedge funds and other investment firms that we track manage billions of dollars of their wealthy clients’ money, and needless to say, they are painstakingly thorough when analyzing where to invest this money, as their own wealth also depends on it. Regardless of the various methods used by elite investors like David Tepper and David Abrams, the resources they expend are second-to-none. This is especially valuable when it comes to small-cap stocks, which is where they generate their strongest outperformance, as their resources give them a huge edge when it comes to studying these stocks compared to the average investor, which is why we intently follow their activity in the small-cap space.
Is Universal Electronics Inc (NASDAQ:UEIC) an excellent investment now? The best stock pickers are in a bullish mood. The number of bullish hedge fund bets increased by 6 recently. Our calculations also showed that ueic isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
To the average investor there are dozens of metrics stock traders use to assess stocks. Some of the most underrated metrics are hedge fund and insider trading moves. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best money managers can beat the broader indices by a very impressive margin (see the details here).
Let’s go over the key hedge fund action regarding Universal Electronics Inc (NASDAQ:UEIC).
What does smart money think about Universal Electronics Inc (NASDAQ:UEIC)?
At the end of the first quarter, a total of 12 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 100% from the fourth quarter of 2018. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in UEIC over the last 15 quarters. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).
According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Millennium Management, managed by Israel Englander, holds the biggest position in Universal Electronics Inc (NASDAQ:UEIC). Millennium Management has a $7.4 million position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is SG Capital Management, managed by Ken Grossman and Glen Schneider, which holds a $5 million position; the fund has 0.9% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other peers that are bullish include Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.
As aggregate interest increased, specific money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. SG Capital Management, managed by Ken Grossman and Glen Schneider, initiated the biggest position in Universal Electronics Inc (NASDAQ:UEIC). SG Capital Management had $5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors also initiated a $2.8 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new UEIC positions are Josh Goldberg’s G2 Investment Partners Management, Minhua Zhang’s Weld Capital Management, and Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Universal Electronics Inc (NASDAQ:UEIC). We will take a look at Attunity Ltd (NASDAQ:ATTU), Avianca Holdings SA (NYSE:AVH), Capitol Investment Corp. IV (NYSE:CIC), and American Outdoor Brands Corporation (NASDAQ:AOBC). This group of stocks’ market caps match UEIC’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| ATTU | 18 | 158528 | 1 |
| AVH | 4 | 6454 | 0 |
| CIC | 15 | 169328 | 1 |
| AOBC | 15 | 81359 | 1 |
| Average | 13 | 103917 | 0.75 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 13 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $104 million. That figure was $26 million in UEIC’s case. Attunity Ltd (NASDAQ:ATTU) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Avianca Holdings SA (NYSE:AVH) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Universal Electronics Inc (NASDAQ:UEIC) 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 6.2% in Q2 through June 19th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by nearly 3 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on UEIC as the stock returned 15.2% during the same time frame and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
