We at Insider Monkey have gone over 700 13F filings that hedge funds and prominent investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of December 31st. In this article we look at what those investors think of Irsa Inversiones y Rprsntcins SA (NYSE:IRS).
Irsa Inversiones y Rprsntcins SA (NYSE:IRS) investors should pay attention to a decrease in hedge fund sentiment in recent months. Our calculations also showed that IRS isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
In the financial world there are a large number of tools investors have at their disposal to grade stocks. A pair of the most under-the-radar tools are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outperform the broader indices by a solid amount. Insider Monkey’s flagship best performing hedge funds strategy returned 20.7% year to date (through March 12th) and outperformed the market even though it draws its stock picks among small-cap stocks. This strategy also outperformed the market by 32 percentage points since its inception (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
We’re going to take a gander at the fresh hedge fund action surrounding Irsa Inversiones y Rprsntcins SA (NYSE:IRS).
How have hedgies been trading Irsa Inversiones y Rprsntcins SA (NYSE:IRS)?
At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 7 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -30% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards IRS over the last 14 quarters. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in Irsa Inversiones y Rprsntcins SA (NYSE:IRS) was held by Autonomy Capital, which reported holding $37.4 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by 683 Capital Partners with a $11.7 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Serengeti Asset Management, Brigade Capital, and Arrowstreet Capital.
Seeing as Irsa Inversiones y Rprsntcins SA (NYSE:IRS) has faced falling interest from hedge fund managers, it’s easy to see that there was a specific group of funds who sold off their entire stakes by the end of the third quarter. Interestingly, Michael Barnes and Arif Inayatullah’s Tricadia Capital Management said goodbye to the largest position of all the hedgies tracked by Insider Monkey, valued at close to $6 million in stock, and Miguel Fidalgo’s Triarii Capital was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $2.4 million worth. These moves are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 3 funds by the end of the third quarter.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Irsa Inversiones y Rprsntcins SA (NYSE:IRS) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Rite Aid Corporation (NYSE:RAD), Vericel Corp (NASDAQ:VCEL), Golar LNG Partners LP (NASDAQ:GMLP), and Unitil Corporation (NYSE:UTL). All of these stocks’ market caps are similar to IRS’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| RAD | 13 | 32565 | -5 |
| VCEL | 19 | 213562 | -1 |
| GMLP | 4 | 26974 | -2 |
| UTL | 8 | 95849 | -2 |
| Average | 11 | 92238 | -2.5 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 11 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $92 million. That figure was $59 million in IRS’s case. Vericel Corp (NASDAQ:VCEL) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Golar LNG Partners LP (NASDAQ:GMLP) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Irsa Inversiones y Rprsntcins SA (NYSE:IRS) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. Our calculations showed that top 15 most popular stocks) among hedge funds returned 24.2% through April 22nd and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by more than 7 percentage points. Unfortunately IRS wasn’t nearly as popular as these 15 stock (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); IRS investors were disappointed as the stock returned -22.1% and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 15 most popular stocks) among hedge funds as 13 of these stocks already outperformed the market this year.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
