Here is What Hedge Funds Think About AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc (AMC)

The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. Insider Monkey finished processing 821 13F filings submitted by hedge funds and prominent investors. These filings show these funds’ portfolio positions as of March 31st, 2020. In this article we are going to take a look at smart money sentiment towards AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc (NYSE:AMC).

AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc (NYSE:AMC) was in 14 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. AMC has seen a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds of late. There were 19 hedge funds in our database with AMC positions at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that AMC isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 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.

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 was able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 58 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that’ll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 36% through May 18th. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

Matthew Hulsizer of PEAK6 Capital

At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, blockchain technology’s influence will go beyond online payments. So, we are checking out this futurist’s moonshot opportunities in tech stocks. We interview hedge fund managers and ask them about their best ideas. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. For example we are checking out stocks recommended/scorned by legendary Bill Miller. Our best call in 2020 was shorting the market when the S&P 500 was trading at 3150 in February after realizing the coronavirus pandemic’s significance before most investors. Now we’re going to view the latest hedge fund action regarding AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc (NYSE:AMC).

What have hedge funds been doing with AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc (NYSE:AMC)?

Heading into the second quarter of 2020, a total of 14 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -26% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 18 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in AMC a year ago. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were adding to their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Greenvale Capital, managed by Bruce Emery, holds the biggest position in AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc (NYSE:AMC). Greenvale Capital has a $27.4 million position in the stock, comprising 7.2% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Citadel Investment Group, led by Ken Griffin, holding a $1.5 million call position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining professional money managers that are bullish include Sander Gerber’s Hudson Bay Capital Management, Daniel S. Och’s OZ Management and Robert Henry Lynch’s Aristeia Capital. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Greenvale Capital allocated the biggest weight to AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc (NYSE:AMC), around 7.19% of its 13F portfolio. Aristeia Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.05 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to AMC.

Because AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc (NYSE:AMC) has witnessed falling interest from the smart money, it’s easy to see that there were a few fund managers who sold off their positions entirely last quarter. Interestingly, William B. Gray’s Orbis Investment Management dumped the largest stake of all the hedgies watched by Insider Monkey, valued at an estimated $7.1 million in stock. Renaissance Technologies, also dropped its stock, about $3 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as total hedge fund interest fell by 5 funds last quarter.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc (NYSE:AMC). We will take a look at Enerplus Corp (NYSE:ERF), Citizens, Inc. (NYSE:CIA), Comtech Telecommunications Corp. (NASDAQ:CMTL), and Progenics Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:PGNX). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to AMC’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 12 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $36 million. That figure was $32 million in AMC’s case. Comtech Telecommunications Corp. (NASDAQ:CMTL) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Citizens, Inc. (NYSE:CIA) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc (NYSE:AMC) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our calculations showed that top 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.4% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10.1 percentage points. These stocks gained 13.3% in 2020 through June 25th but still beat the market by 16.8 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on AMC as the stock returned 35.1% in Q2 (through June 25th) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

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