The financial regulations require hedge funds and wealthy investors that exceeded the $100 million equity holdings threshold to file a report that shows their positions at the end of every quarter. Even though it isn’t the intention, these filings to a certain extent level the playing field for ordinary investors. The latest round of 13F filings disclosed the funds’ positions on March 31st, about a week after the S&P 500 Index bottomed. We at Insider Monkey have made an extensive database of more than 821 of those established hedge funds and famous value investors’ filings. In this article, we analyze how these elite funds and prominent investors traded Uranium Energy Corp. (NYSE:UEC) based on those filings.
Uranium Energy Corp. (NYSE:UEC) investors should be aware of a decrease in support from the world’s most elite money managers recently. Our calculations also showed that UEC 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.
In the 21st century investor’s toolkit there are numerous tools investors have at their disposal to analyze stocks. Some of the most useful tools are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outpace the market by a very impressive amount (see the details here).
Joe Huber of Huber Capital Management
At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, 2020’s unprecedented market conditions provide us with the highest number of trading opportunities in a decade. So we are checking out stocks recommended/scorned by legendary Bill Miller. 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. Now we’re going to take a glance at the new hedge fund action encompassing Uranium Energy Corp. (NYSE:UEC).
How are hedge funds trading Uranium Energy Corp. (NYSE:UEC)?
At the end of the first quarter, a total of 6 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -14% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 9 hedge funds with a bullish position in UEC a year ago. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were adding to their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in Uranium Energy Corp. (NYSE:UEC) was held by Falcon Edge Capital, which reported holding $1.2 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by CQS Cayman LP with a $0.4 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Sprott Asset Management, Citadel Investment Group, and Huber Capital Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Falcon Edge Capital allocated the biggest weight to Uranium Energy Corp. (NYSE:UEC), around 0.13% of its 13F portfolio. CQS Cayman LP is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 0.03 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to UEC.
We view hedge fund activity in the stock unfavorable, but in this case there was only a single hedge fund selling its entire position: AQR Capital Management. One hedge fund selling its entire position doesn’t always imply a bearish intent. Theoretically a hedge fund may decide to sell a promising position in order to invest the proceeds in a more promising idea. However, we don’t think this is the case in this case because none of the 750+ hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey identified UEC as a viable investment and initiated a position in the stock.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Uranium Energy Corp. (NYSE:UEC). We will take a look at Strongbridge Biopharma plc (NASDAQ:SBBP), Sierra Oncology, Inc. (NASDAQ:SRRA), Drive Shack Inc. (NYSE:DS), and Ceragon Networks Ltd. (NASDAQ:CRNT). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to UEC’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| SBBP | 10 | 12910 | 1 |
| SRRA | 9 | 42852 | 0 |
| DS | 3 | 711 | -1 |
| CRNT | 3 | 4412 | -1 |
| Average | 6.25 | 15221 | -0.25 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 6.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $15 million. That figure was $2 million in UEC’s case. Strongbridge Biopharma plc (NASDAQ:SBBP) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Drive Shack Inc. (NYSE:DS) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. Uranium Energy Corp. (NYSE:UEC) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below 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 13.9% in 2020 through June 10th and still beat the market by 14.2 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on UEC as the stock returned 82.1% during the second quarter and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.
Follow Uranium Energy Corp (NYSEMKT:UEC)
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
