Is International Speedway Corporation (NASDAQ:ISCA) a good stock to buy right now? We at Insider Monkey like to examine what billionaires and hedge funds think of a company before doing days of research on it. Given their 2 and 20 payment structure, hedge funds have more incentives and resources than the average investor. The funds have access to expert networks and get tips from industry insiders. They also have numerous Ivy League graduates and MBAs. Like everyone else, hedge funds perform miserably at times, but their consensus picks have historically outperformed the market after risk adjustments.
Is International Speedway Corporation (NASDAQ:ISCA) a healthy stock for your portfolio? Money managers are turning less bullish. The number of long hedge fund bets shrunk by 1 in recent months. Our calculations also showed that isca isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds. ISCA was in 19 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. There were 20 hedge funds in our database with ISCA positions at the end of the previous quarter.
To most market participants, hedge funds are assumed to be unimportant, old investment vehicles of years past. While there are greater than 8000 funds trading at the moment, Our researchers choose to focus on the aristocrats of this club, approximately 750 funds. Most estimates calculate that this group of people orchestrate the lion’s share of the hedge fund industry’s total asset base, and by shadowing their inimitable picks, Insider Monkey has spotted numerous investment strategies that have historically outpaced Mr. Market. Insider Monkey’s flagship hedge fund strategy exceeded the S&P 500 index by around 5 percentage points per annum since its inception in May 2014 through the end of May. We were able to generate large returns even by identifying short candidates. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 30.9% since February 2017 (through May 30th) even though the market was up nearly 24% during the same period. We just shared a list of 5 short targets in our latest quarterly update and they are already down an average of 11.9% in less than a couple of weeks whereas our long picks outperformed the market by 2 percentage points in this volatile 2 week period.
Let’s review the latest hedge fund action regarding International Speedway Corporation (NASDAQ:ISCA).
How are hedge funds trading International Speedway Corporation (NASDAQ:ISCA)?
At the end of the first quarter, a total of 19 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -5% from the fourth quarter of 2018. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards ISCA over the last 15 quarters. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were adding to their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in International Speedway Corporation (NASDAQ:ISCA) was held by Renaissance Technologies, which reported holding $62.4 million worth of stock at the end of March. It was followed by Elliott Management with a $33.5 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included TOMS Capital, GLG Partners, and Arrowstreet Capital.
Seeing as International Speedway Corporation (NASDAQ:ISCA) has faced a decline in interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s safe to say that there were a few hedge funds that decided to sell off their full holdings in the third quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group dumped the biggest position of all the hedgies watched by Insider Monkey, comprising close to $2.2 million in stock. Minhua Zhang’s fund, Weld Capital Management, also cut its stock, about $0.7 million worth. These moves are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 1 funds in the third quarter.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to International Speedway Corporation (NASDAQ:ISCA). These stocks are Crocs, Inc. (NASDAQ:CROX), Capitol Federal Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ:CFFN), SPS Commerce, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPSC), and Plexus Corp. (NASDAQ:PLXS). This group of stocks’ market caps match ISCA’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| CROX | 25 | 393812 | -1 |
| CFFN | 11 | 157223 | 2 |
| SPSC | 19 | 175243 | 0 |
| PLXS | 9 | 49518 | -5 |
| Average | 16 | 193949 | -1 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 16 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $194 million. That figure was $168 million in ISCA’s case. Crocs, Inc. (NASDAQ:CROX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Plexus Corp. (NASDAQ:PLXS) is the least popular one with only 9 bullish hedge fund positions. International Speedway Corporation (NASDAQ:ISCA) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 1.9% in Q2 through May 30th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by more than 3 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on ISCA as the stock returned 4% during the same period and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
