After several tireless days we have finished crunching the numbers from the more than 700 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 September 30. The results of that effort will be put on display in this article, as we share valuable insight into the smart money sentiment towards Atlantic Tele-Network, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATNI).
Is Atlantic Tele-Network, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATNI) the right pick for your portfolio? The smart money is getting less optimistic. The number of bullish hedge fund bets stayed the same which is a slightly negative development in our experience. At the end of this article we will also compare ATNI to other similarly valued stocks including Independent Bank Corp (NASDAQ:INDB), WesBanco, Inc. (NASDAQ:WSBC), and MedAssets, Inc. (NASDAQ:MDAS) to get a better sense of its popularity.
Follow Atn International Inc. (NASDAQ:ATNI)
Follow Atn International Inc. (NASDAQ:ATNI)
To the average investor there are many signals investors use to analyze stocks. A duo of the best signals are hedge fund and insider trading signals. Our research have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite hedge fund managers can outperform the broader indices by a significant amount (see the details here).
With all of this in mind, we’re going to take a gander at the new action surrounding Atlantic Tele-Network, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATNI).
What have hedge funds been doing with Atlantic Tele-Network, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATNI)?
Heading into Q4, a total of 9 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish in this stock, a change of 0% from the second quarter. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings substantially.
According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates had the most valuable position in Atlantic Tele-Network, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATNI), worth close to $18.9 million, accounting for 0.1% of its total 13F portfolio. On Royce & Associates’s heels is Renaissance Technologies, led by Jim Simons, holding a $18.8 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other peers that are bullish contain funds that employ quant strategies such as Millennium Management, Neil Chriss’s Hutchin Hill Capital and Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management.
Since Atlantic Tele-Network, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATNI) has witnessed falling interest from hedge fund managers, logic holds that there lies a certain “tier” of hedge funds that decided to sell off their entire stakes in third quarter. Intriguingly, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group dumped the largest position of the 700 funds watched by Insider Monkey, worth close to $1.2 million in stock, and Gavin Saitowitz and Cisco J. del Valle of Springbok Capital was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $0 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).
Now let’s take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Atlantic Tele-Network, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATNI). We will take a look at Independent Bank Corp (NASDAQ:INDB), WesBanco, Inc. (NASDAQ:WSBC), MedAssets, Inc. (NASDAQ:MDAS), and Tumi Holdings Inc (NYSE:TUMI). None of these stocks are in the same industry as ATNI but their market caps are very close to ATNI’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| INDB | 8 | 26253 | 3 |
| WSBC | 7 | 16647 | -2 |
| MDAS | 17 | 315102 | 1 |
| TUMI | 16 | 105739 | 2 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 12 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $116 million. MedAssets, Inc. (NASDAQ:MDAS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand WesBanco, Inc. (NASDAQ:WSBC) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Atlantic Tele-Network, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATNI) 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. In this regard MDAS might be a better candidate to consider a long position.
