We know that hedge funds generate strong, risk-adjusted returns over the long run, therefore imitating the picks that they are collectively bullish on can be a profitable strategy for retail investors. With billions of dollars in assets, smart money investors have to conduct complex analyses, spend many resources and use tools that are not always available for the general crowd. This doesn’t mean that they don’t have occasional colossal losses; they do (like Peltz’s recent General Electric losses). However, it is still a good idea to keep an eye on hedge fund activity. With this in mind, as the current round of 13F filings has just ended, let’s examine the smart money sentiment towards Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA) and compare it against similarly valued stocks such as Enova International Inc (NYSE:ENVA), WAVE Life Sciences Ltd. (NASDAQ:WVE), Stoke Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:STOK), and U.S. Silica Holdings Inc (NYSE:SLCA).
Is Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA) a marvelous investment now? The best stock pickers are taking a bullish view. The number of bullish hedge fund bets improved by 4 recently. Our calculations also showed that LTRPA isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video at the end of this article for Q2 rankings).
If you’d ask most traders, hedge funds are assumed to be worthless, outdated financial vehicles of the past. While there are over 8000 funds with their doors open today, We hone in on the aristocrats of this group, around 750 funds. These hedge fund managers orchestrate the majority of the hedge fund industry’s total capital, and by monitoring their unrivaled investments, Insider Monkey has revealed several investment strategies that have historically beaten the broader indices. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy surpassed the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points per annum since its inception in May 2014. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 27.8% since February 2017 (through November 21st) even though the market was up more than 39% during the same period. We just shared a list of 7 short targets in our latest quarterly update .
Boykin Curry of Eagle Capital
Unlike the largest US hedge funds that are convinced Dow will soar past 40,000 or the world’s most bearish hedge fund that’s more convinced than ever that a crash is coming, our long-short investment strategy doesn’t rely on bull or bear markets to deliver double digit returns. We only rely on the best performing hedge funds‘ buy/sell signals. We’re going to review the latest hedge fund action surrounding Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA).
What have hedge funds been doing with Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA)?
At Q3’s end, a total of 25 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 19% from one quarter earlier. On the other hand, there were a total of 23 hedge funds with a bullish position in LTRPA a year ago. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
More specifically, Eagle Capital Management was the largest shareholder of Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA), with a stake worth $50.3 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Eagle Capital Management was Hudson Bay Capital Management, which amassed a stake valued at $38.1 million. HBK Investments, Empyrean Capital Partners, and Renaissance Technologies 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 Zebra Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA), around 1.25% of its portfolio. Empyrean Capital Partners is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 1.06 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to LTRPA.
Now, specific money managers were breaking ground themselves. Paloma Partners, managed by Donald Sussman, assembled the biggest position in Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA). Paloma Partners had $0.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Bart Baum’s Ionic Capital Management also initiated a $0.3 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new LTRPA positions are Perella Weinberg Partners, Andrew Weiss’s Weiss Asset Management, and John Orrico’s Water Island Capital.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA). We will take a look at Enova International Inc (NYSE:ENVA), WAVE Life Sciences Ltd. (NASDAQ:WVE), Stoke Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:STOK), and U.S. Silica Holdings Inc (NYSE:SLCA). All of these stocks’ market caps match LTRPA’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| ENVA | 20 | 131728 | 0 |
| WVE | 17 | 260950 | -3 |
| STOK | 10 | 117509 | -8 |
| SLCA | 16 | 198147 | -1 |
| Average | 15.75 | 177084 | -3 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 15.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $177 million. That figure was $199 million in LTRPA’s case. Enova International Inc (NYSE:ENVA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Stoke Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:STOK) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA) is more popular among hedge funds. 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. Unfortunately LTRPA wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on LTRPA were disappointed as the stock returned -26.4% during the first two months of the fourth quarter and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds as 70 percent of these stocks already outperformed the market in Q4.
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
