After several tireless days we have finished crunching the numbers from nearly 750 13F filings issued by the elite hedge funds and other investment firms that we track at Insider Monkey, which disclosed those firms’ equity portfolios as of December 31. The results of that effort will be put on display in this article, as we share valuable insight into the smart money sentiment towards Primo Water Corporation (NASDAQ:PRMW).
Is Primo Water Corporation (NASDAQ:PRMW) a splendid investment today? Prominent investors are becoming less confident. The number of long hedge fund positions were cut by 2 recently. Our calculations also showed that prmw isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
At the moment there are a lot of metrics stock traders put to use to appraise their holdings. A couple of the most useful metrics are hedge fund and insider trading activity. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top fund managers can outpace the S&P 500 by a significant margin (see the details here).
We’re going to take a look at the recent hedge fund action surrounding Primo Water Corporation (NASDAQ:PRMW).
Hedge fund activity in Primo Water Corporation (NASDAQ:PRMW)
At Q4’s end, a total of 14 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -13% from the second quarter of 2018. By comparison, 15 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in PRMW 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, Akre Capital Management was the largest shareholder of Primo Water Corporation (NASDAQ:PRMW), with a stake worth $39.9 million reported as of the end of December. Trailing Akre Capital Management was Legion Partners Asset Management, which amassed a stake valued at $37 million. Renaissance Technologies, Manatuck Hill Partners, and Driehaus Capital were also very fond of the stock, giving the stock large weights in their portfolios.
Because Primo Water Corporation (NASDAQ:PRMW) has faced bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, it’s easy to see that there was a specific group of hedgies who were dropping their entire stakes last quarter. Intriguingly, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital sold off the largest stake of all the hedgies tracked by Insider Monkey, comprising close to $5.5 million in stock, and David Brown’s Hawk Ridge Management was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $1.7 million worth. These moves are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 2 funds last quarter.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Primo Water Corporation (NASDAQ:PRMW). We will take a look at Viomi Technology Co., Ltd (NASDAQ:VIOT), Oasis Midstream Partners LP (NYSE:OMP), Quantenna Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:QTNA), and MacroGenics Inc (NASDAQ:MGNX). All of these stocks’ market caps match PRMW’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| VIOT | 3 | 24289 | -3 |
| OMP | 3 | 14603 | 1 |
| QTNA | 22 | 69071 | 6 |
| MGNX | 18 | 30648 | -1 |
| Average | 11.5 | 34653 | 0.75 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 11.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $35 million. That figure was $138 million in PRMW’s case. Quantenna Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:QTNA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Viomi Technology Co., Ltd (NASDAQ:VIOT) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. Primo Water Corporation (NASDAQ:PRMW) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but 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 PRMW wasn’t nearly as popular as these 15 stock and hedge funds that were betting on PRMW were disappointed as the stock returned 10.3% 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.
