The Insider Monkey team has completed processing the quarterly 13F filings for the September 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 A. H. Belo Corporation (NYSE:AHC).
A. H. Belo Corporation (NYSE:AHC) investors should pay attention to an increase in hedge fund sentiment lately. Our calculations also showed that AHC isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video below for Q2 rankings).
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
To the average investor there are plenty of gauges shareholders put to use to grade their holdings. A couple of the less known gauges are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can trounce the broader indices by a healthy margin (see the details here).
Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies
We leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example Discover is offering this insane cashback card, so we look into shorting the stock. One of the most bullish analysts in America just put his money where his mouth is. He says, “I’m investing more today than I did back in early 2009.” So we check out his pitch. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. We even check out this option genius’ weekly trade ideas. This December, we recommended Adams Energy as a one-way bet based on an under-the-radar fund manager’s investor letter and the stock already gained 20 percent. Now let’s take a peek at the recent hedge fund action encompassing A. H. Belo Corporation (NYSE:AHC).
What does smart money think about A. H. Belo Corporation (NYSE:AHC)?
Heading into the fourth quarter of 2019, a total of 4 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 33% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards AHC over the last 17 quarters. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, David P. Cohen’s Minerva Advisors has the most valuable position in A. H. Belo Corporation (NYSE:AHC), worth close to $3.6 million, comprising 2% of its total 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is Renaissance Technologies, with a $3.3 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other hedge funds and institutional investors with similar optimism comprise Mario Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors, Mark Kleiman’s Factorial Partners and . In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Minerva Advisors allocated the biggest weight to A. H. Belo Corporation (NYSE:AHC), around 2.01% of its 13F portfolio. Factorial Partners is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 0.3 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to AHC.
There weren’t any hedge funds initiating brand new positions in the stock during the third quarter.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as A. H. Belo Corporation (NYSE:AHC) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNSS), Intellicheck Mobilisa, Inc. (NYSE:IDN), Veritone, Inc. (NASDAQ:VERI), and Innovative Solutions & Support Inc (NASDAQ:ISSC). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to AHC’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| SNSS | 12 | 17107 | 1 |
| IDN | 1 | 192 | 0 |
| VERI | 2 | 413 | -2 |
| ISSC | 3 | 3048 | 0 |
| Average | 4.5 | 5190 | -0.25 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 4.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $5 million. That figure was $8 million in AHC’s case. Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNSS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Intellicheck Mobilisa, Inc. (NYSE:IDN) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. A. H. Belo Corporation (NYSE:AHC) 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 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 37.4% in 2019 through the end of November and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 9.9 percentage points. Unfortunately AHC wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); AHC investors were disappointed as the stock returned -20.3% during the first two months of the fourth quarter and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds as 70 percent of these stocks already outperformed the market in Q4.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
