Hedge funds and other institutional investors have just completed filing their 13Fs with the Securities and Exchange Commission, revealing their equity portfolios as of the end of September. At Insider Monkey, we follow over 700 of the best-performing investors and by analyzing their 13F filings, we can determine the stocks that they are collectively bullish on. One of their picks is Ixia (NASDAQ:XXIA), so let’s take a closer look at the sentiment that surrounds it in the current quarter.
Is Ixia (NASDAQ:XXIA) a buy right now? The smart money is taking a bullish view. The number of long hedge fund positions moved up by 6 recently. XXIA was in 24 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 18 hedge funds in our database with XXIA positions at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare XXIA to other stocks including Universal Forest Products, Inc. (NASDAQ:UFPI), PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust (NYSE:PMT), and Flagstar Bancorp Inc (NYSE:FBC) to get a better sense of its popularity.
Follow Ixia (NASDAQ:XXIA)
Follow Ixia (NASDAQ:XXIA)
To the average investor there are plenty of gauges shareholders can use to evaluate stocks. A pair of the less utilized gauges are hedge fund and insider trading interest. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best investment managers can outclass the broader indices by a superb margin (see the details here).
With all of this in mind, we’re going to take a peek at the key action regarding Ixia (NASDAQ:XXIA).
What have hedge funds been doing with Ixia (NASDAQ:XXIA)?
At the end of the third quarter, a total of 24 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 33% from the second quarter. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Lee Munder’s Lee Munder Capital Group has the largest position in Ixia (NASDAQ:XXIA), worth close to $19.4 million, accounting for 0.4% of its total 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is Cadian Capital, led by Eric Bannasch, holding a $17.5 million position; the fund has 0.6% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other members of the smart money that hold long positions contain Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies, Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management and Mario Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors.
As one would reasonably expect, key money managers were breaking ground themselves. PDT Partners, managed by Peter Muller, assembled the most outsized position in Ixia (NASDAQ:XXIA). PDT Partners had $0.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Peter Algert and Kevin Coldiron’s Algert Coldiron Investors also initiated a $0.7 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors, Michael Platt and William Reeves’s BlueCrest Capital Mgmt., and David Costen Haley’s HBK Investments.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Ixia (NASDAQ:XXIA) but similarly valued. These stocks are Universal Forest Products, Inc. (NASDAQ:UFPI), PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust (NYSE:PMT), Flagstar Bancorp Inc (NYSE:FBC), and NIC Inc. (NASDAQ:EGOV). This group of stocks’ market values resemble XXIA’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| UFPI | 19 | 75590 | 5 |
| PMT | 17 | 130941 | -6 |
| FBC | 17 | 65915 | 6 |
| EGOV | 15 | 52849 | 3 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 17 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $81 million. That figure was $107 million in XXIA’s case. Universal Forest Products, Inc. (NASDAQ:UFPI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand NIC Inc. (NASDAQ:EGOV) is the least popular one with only 15 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Ixia (NASDAQ:XXIA) is more popular among hedge funds. Considering that hedge funds are fond of this stock in relation to its market cap peers, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and potentially include it in your portfolio.
