Is Impinj, Inc. (PI) A Good Stock To Buy?

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 September 30th. The results of that effort will be put on display in this article, as we share valuable insight into the smart money sentiment towards Impinj, Inc. (NASDAQ:PI).

Is Impinj, Inc. (NASDAQ:PI) a marvelous investment now? Prominent investors are in a pessimistic mood and that was before yesterday’s decline. The number of long hedge fund bets were trimmed by 2 during third quarter. Our calculations also showed that PI 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.

In the eyes of most traders, hedge funds are viewed as slow, outdated financial vehicles of years past. While there are more than 8000 funds in operation at the moment, Our experts hone in on the bigwigs of this group, around 750 funds. It is estimated that this group of investors preside over the majority of the hedge fund industry’s total capital, and by monitoring their highest performing investments, Insider Monkey has determined numerous investment strategies that have historically outpaced Mr. Market. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy outrun the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points annually since its inception in May 2014. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 27.8% since February 2017 (through November 21st) even though the market was up more than 39% during the same period. We just shared a list of 7 short targets in our latest quarterly update .

David E. Shaw of D.E. Shaw

We leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example Europe is set to become the world’s largest cannabis market, so we check out this European marijuana stock pitch. 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 also rely on the best performing hedge funds‘ buy/sell signals. Let’s review the recent hedge fund action encompassing Impinj, Inc. (NASDAQ:PI).

How have hedgies been trading Impinj, Inc. (NASDAQ:PI)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 15 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -12% from the second quarter of 2019. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in PI over the last 17 quarters. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

The largest stake in Impinj, Inc. (NASDAQ:PI) was held by Sylebra Capital Management, which reported holding $130.5 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by D E Shaw with a $21.9 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included GMT Capital, Citadel Investment Group, and Driehaus Capital. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Sylebra Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Impinj, Inc. (NASDAQ:PI), around 5.7% of its 13F portfolio. G2 Investment Partners Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 1.74 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to PI.

Judging by the fact that Impinj, Inc. (NASDAQ:PI) has faced a decline in interest from hedge fund managers, it’s safe to say that there were a few funds that decided to sell off their positions entirely heading into Q4. It’s worth mentioning that Phil Frohlich’s Prescott Group Capital Management cut the largest position of all the hedgies followed by Insider Monkey, valued at about $0.9 million in stock, and Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $0.8 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest fell by 2 funds heading into Q4.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Impinj, Inc. (NASDAQ:PI) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Byline Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE:BY), P.H. Glatfelter Company (NYSE:GLT), New Gold Inc. (NYSEAMEX:NGD), and Nabors Industries Ltd. (NYSE:NBR). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble PI’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

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 $53 million. That figure was $213 million in PI’s case. Nabors Industries Ltd. (NYSE:NBR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Byline Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE:BY) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Impinj, Inc. (NASDAQ:PI) 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 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 PI wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on PI were disappointed as the stock returned 2.4% during the fourth quarter (through the end of November) 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 many of these stocks already outperformed the market so far this year.

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