We at Insider Monkey have gone over 738 13F filings that hedge funds and prominent investors are required to file by the SEC The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of March 31st. In this article, we look at what those funds think of MarineMax, Inc. (NYSE:HZO) based on that data.
MarineMax, Inc. (NYSE:HZO) shareholders have witnessed a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds lately. HZO was in 11 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. There were 17 hedge funds in our database with HZO positions at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that hzo isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
In the financial world there are a large number of tools investors have at their disposal to grade stocks. A pair of the most under-the-radar tools are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outperform the broader indices by a solid amount. Insider Monkey’s flagship best performing hedge funds strategy returned 25.8% year to date (through May 30th) and outperformed the market even though it draws its stock picks among small-cap stocks. This strategy also outperformed the market by 40 percentage points since its inception (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
We’re going to review the recent hedge fund action regarding MarineMax, Inc. (NYSE:HZO).
How have hedgies been trading MarineMax, Inc. (NYSE:HZO)?
At the end of the first quarter, a total of 11 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -35% from the fourth quarter of 2018. On the other hand, there were a total of 9 hedge funds with a bullish position in HZO a year ago. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).
More specifically, Impala Asset Management was the largest shareholder of MarineMax, Inc. (NYSE:HZO), with a stake worth $13.8 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing Impala Asset Management was GLG Partners, which amassed a stake valued at $5.5 million. Marshall Wace LLP, Two Sigma Advisors, and Maverick Capital were also very fond of the stock, giving the stock large weights in their portfolios.
Since MarineMax, Inc. (NYSE:HZO) has faced falling interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s easy to see that there lies a certain “tier” of hedgies that decided to sell off their entire stakes by the end of the third quarter. Intriguingly, David Harding’s Winton Capital Management said goodbye to the largest investment of the 700 funds monitored by Insider Monkey, valued at about $6.5 million in stock. Peter Algert and Kevin Coldiron’s fund, Algert Coldiron Investors, also cut its stock, about $1.2 million worth. These moves are interesting, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 6 funds by the end of the third quarter.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to MarineMax, Inc. (NYSE:HZO). We will take a look at Ares Commercial Real Estate Corp (NYSE:ACRE), Sentinel Energy Services Inc. (NASDAQ:STNL), Community Health Systems, Inc. (NYSE:CYH), and CAI International Inc (NYSE:CAI). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to HZO’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| ACRE | 10 | 24897 | 5 |
| STNL | 15 | 160888 | -1 |
| CYH | 18 | 51979 | -8 |
| CAI | 16 | 112720 | -1 |
| Average | 14.75 | 87621 | -1.25 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 14.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $88 million. That figure was $27 million in HZO’s case. Community Health Systems, Inc. (NYSE:CYH) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Ares Commercial Real Estate Corp (NYSE:ACRE) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. MarineMax, Inc. (NYSE:HZO) 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 6.2% in Q2 through June 19th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by nearly 3 percentage points. Unfortunately HZO wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); HZO investors were disappointed as the stock returned -12.3% during the same time period 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 13 of these stocks already outperformed the market so far in Q2.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
