Is LTRPA A Good Stock To Buy Now?

A whopping number of 13F filings filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been processed by Insider Monkey so that individual investors can look at the overall hedge fund sentiment towards the stocks included in their watchlists. These freshly-submitted public filings disclose money managers’ equity positions as of the end of the three-month period that ended September 30, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment on Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA).

Is LTRPA a good stock to buy now? The smart money was turning less bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund positions were trimmed by 2 in recent months. Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA) was in 20 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 34. Our calculations also showed that LTRPA isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

In the financial world there are a large number of methods market participants employ to evaluate their stock investments. Some of the most innovative methods are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the elite investment managers can trounce the S&P 500 by a significant amount (see the details here).

Boykin Curry of Eagle Capital

At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 15 best blue chip stocks to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. 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 website. With all of this in mind we’re going to go over the new hedge fund action regarding Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA).

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

At the end of September, a total of 20 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -9% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 27 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in LTRPA a year ago. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

The largest stake in Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA) was held by Eagle Capital Management, which reported holding $8.5 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by D E Shaw with a $4.3 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Cove Street Capital, Empyrean Capital Partners, and Isomer Partners. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Isomer Partners allocated the biggest weight to Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA), around 0.64% of its 13F portfolio. Cove Street Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.62 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to LTRPA.

Because Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA) has witnessed falling interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, logic holds that there were a few fund managers that elected to cut their positions entirely last quarter. Intriguingly, Nick Thakore’s Diametric Capital sold off the largest investment of all the hedgies watched by Insider Monkey, worth close to $0.2 million in stock. Murray Stahl’s fund, Horizon Asset Management, also dumped its stock, about $0.2 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 2 funds last quarter.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA). These stocks are CyberOptics Corporation (NASDAQ:CYBE), Pioneer Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:PBFS), The First Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:FNLC), Landmark Infrastructure Partners LP (NASDAQ:LMRK), Movado Group, Inc (NYSE:MOV), SC Health Corporation (NYSE:SCPE), and American National BankShares Inc (NASDAQ:AMNB). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to LTRPA’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 7.6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $17 million. That figure was $32 million in LTRPA’s case. Movado Group, Inc (NYSE:MOV) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand The First Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:FNLC) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LTRPA) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for LTRPA is 70.6. 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 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.3% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10 percentage points. These stocks gained 30.7% in 2020 through December 14th and still beat the market by 15.8 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on LTRPA as the stock returned 115.6% since the end of Q3 (through 12/14) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

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