inTEST Corporation (INTT): Hedge Funds Are Snapping Up

The Insider Monkey team has completed processing the quarterly 13F filings for the March quarter submitted by the hedge funds and other money managers included in our extensive database. Most hedge fund investors experienced strong gains on the back of a strong market performance, which certainly propelled them to adjust their equity holdings so as to maintain the desired risk profile. As a result, the relevancy of these public filings and their content is indisputable, as they may reveal numerous high-potential stocks. The following article will discuss the smart money sentiment towards inTEST Corporation (NYSE:INTT).

inTEST Corporation (NYSE:INTT) was in 4 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 8. INTT investors should be aware of an increase in hedge fund interest recently. There were 3 hedge funds in our database with INTT holdings at the end of December. Our calculations also showed that INTT isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).

Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research has shown that hedge funds’ small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by 115 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that underperformed the market by 10 percentage points annually between 2006 and 2017. Interestingly the margin of underperformance of these stocks has been increasing in recent years. Investors who are long the market and short these stocks would have returned more than 27% annually between 2015 and 2017. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 in our quarterly newsletter.

Peter Rathjens of Arrowstreet Capital

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, an activist hedge fund wants to buy this $27 biotech stock for $50. So, we recommended a long position to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 10 best battery stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our homepage. With all of this in mind let’s view the recent hedge fund action encompassing inTEST Corporation (NYSE:INTT).

Do Hedge Funds Think INTT Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At first quarter’s end, a total of 4 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 33% from the fourth quarter of 2020. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in INTT over the last 23 quarters. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Renaissance Technologies has the largest position in inTEST Corporation (NYSE:INTT), worth close to $9.1 million, corresponding to less than 0.1%% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Alexis Michas and John Bartholdson of Juniper Investment Company, with a $6 million position; the fund has 4.2% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other peers that hold long positions contain Blair Baker’s Precept Capital Management, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital and . In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Juniper Investment Company allocated the biggest weight to inTEST Corporation (NYSE:INTT), around 4.25% of its 13F portfolio. Precept Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 1.61 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to INTT.

Consequently, key hedge funds were breaking ground themselves. Precept Capital Management, managed by Blair Baker, established the most valuable position in inTEST Corporation (NYSE:INTT). Precept Capital Management had $2.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as inTEST Corporation (NYSE:INTT) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Greenland Technologies Holding Corporation (NASDAQ:GTEC), 36Kr Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:KRKR), Landmark Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:LARK), Provident Financial Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PROV), Adamis Pharmaceuticals Corporation (NASDAQ:ADMP), Steel Connect, Inc. (NASDAQ:STCN), and SEACOR Marine Holdings Inc. (NYSE:SMHI). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to INTT’s market valuation.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 2.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $9 million. That figure was $18 million in INTT’s case. Steel Connect, Inc. (NASDAQ:STCN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Greenland Technologies Holding Corporation (NASDAQ:GTEC) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. inTEST Corporation (NYSE:INTT) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for INTT is 71. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 17.2% in 2021 through June 11th and still beat the market by 3.3 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on INTT as the stock returned 23.9% since the end of Q1 (through 6/11) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.