Here is What Hedge Funds Think About IMAX Corporation (IMAX)

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 first 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 4.5 years and analyze what the smart money thinks of IMAX Corporation (NYSE:IMAX) based on that data.

Is IMAX Corporation (NYSE:IMAX) a good investment right now? Hedge funds are turning bullish. The number of long hedge fund bets advanced by 3 lately. Our calculations also showed that IMAX 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). IMAX was in 17 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. There were 14 hedge funds in our database with IMAX holdings at the end of the previous quarter.

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

According to most investors, hedge funds are viewed as underperforming, old financial vehicles of years past. While there are over 8000 funds trading at the moment, Our researchers hone in on the upper echelon of this group, around 850 funds. These investment experts shepherd most of the smart money’s total capital, and by observing their top equity investments, Insider Monkey has determined many investment strategies that have historically beaten the S&P 500 index. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy surpassed the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points annually since its inception in March 2017. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 36% since February 2017 (through May 18th) even though the market was up 30% during the same period. We just shared a list of 8 short targets in our latest quarterly update .

Peter Rathjens of Arrowstreet Capital

We leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example Europe is set to become the world’s largest cannabis market, so we check out this European marijuana stock pitch. We interview hedge fund managers and ask them about their best ideas. If you want to find out the best healthcare stock to buy right now, you can watch our latest hedge fund manager interview here. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. Our best call in 2020 was shorting the market when the S&P 500 was trading at 3150 after realizing the coronavirus pandemic’s significance before most investors. With all of this in mind we’re going to take a look at the recent hedge fund action encompassing IMAX Corporation (NYSE:IMAX).

Hedge fund activity in IMAX Corporation (NYSE:IMAX)

At the end of the first quarter, a total of 17 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 21% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 15 hedge funds with a bullish position in IMAX a year ago. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

More specifically, Renaissance Technologies was the largest shareholder of IMAX Corporation (NYSE:IMAX), with a stake worth $12.1 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Renaissance Technologies was Marshall Wace LLP, which amassed a stake valued at $7.6 million. Arrowstreet Capital, Private Capital Management, and Two Sigma Advisors 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 Voce Capital allocated the biggest weight to IMAX Corporation (NYSE:IMAX), around 1.13% of its 13F portfolio. Private Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 0.91 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to IMAX.

As aggregate interest increased, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Marshall Wace LLP, managed by Paul Marshall and Ian Wace, assembled the most valuable position in IMAX Corporation (NYSE:IMAX). Marshall Wace LLP had $7.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Gregg J. Powers’s Private Capital Management also made a $2.9 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new IMAX positions are J. Daniel Plants’s Voce Capital, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, and Minhua Zhang’s Weld Capital Management.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as IMAX Corporation (NYSE:IMAX) but similarly valued. These stocks are Premier Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:FDEF), Oi SA (NYSE:OIBR), Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:VNDA), and Meredith Corporation (NYSE:MDP). This group of stocks’ market valuations resemble IMAX’s market valuation.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 13.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $90 million. That figure was $39 million in IMAX’s case. Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:VNDA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Oi SA (NYSE:OIBR) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. IMAX Corporation (NYSE:IMAX) 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 13.4% in 2020 through June 22nd but still beat the market by 15.9 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on IMAX, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 26.4% during the first two months and twenty two days of the second quarter and outperformed the market as well.

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