After several tireless days we have finished crunching the numbers from nearly 900 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 March 31st. The results of that effort will be put on display in this article, as we share valuable insight into the smart money sentiment towards MMA Capital Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MMAC).
MMA Capital Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MMAC) has experienced a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds of late. MMA Capital Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MMAC) was in 4 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 5. There were 5 hedge funds in our database with MMAC holdings at the end of December. Our calculations also showed that MMAC isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).
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Peter Rathjens of Arrowstreet Capital
At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, an activist hedge fund wants to buy this $29 biotech stock for $50. So, we recommended a long position to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 10 best battery stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. 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 homepage. With all of this in mind we’re going to review the recent hedge fund action regarding MMA Capital Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MMAC).
Do Hedge Funds Think MMAC Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At Q1’s end, a total of 4 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -20% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 3 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in MMAC 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.
According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Venator Management LLC, managed by Constantine Mamakos, holds the number one position in MMA Capital Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MMAC). Venator Management LLC has a $7 million position in the stock, comprising 2.1% of its 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is Eli Samaha of Madison Avenue Partners, with a $0.6 million position; the fund has 0.2% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other professional money managers that are bullish contain Renaissance Technologies, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital and . In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Venator Management LLC allocated the biggest weight to MMA Capital Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MMAC), around 2.06% of its 13F portfolio. Madison Avenue Partners is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 0.19 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to MMAC.
We view hedge fund activity in the stock unfavorable, but in this case there was only a single hedge fund selling its entire position: Almitas Capital. One hedge fund selling its entire position doesn’t always imply a bearish intent. Theoretically a hedge fund may decide to sell a promising position in order to invest the proceeds in a more promising idea. However, we don’t think this is the case in this case because none of the 750+ hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey identified MMAC as a viable investment and initiated a position in the stock.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as MMA Capital Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MMAC) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Code Chain New Continent Limited (NASDAQ:CCNC), Aileron Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALRN), Exela Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:XELA), Boxlight Corporation (NASDAQ:BOXL), SELLAS Life Sciences Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SLS), Phoenix New Media Ltd (NYSE:FENG), and VAALCO Energy, Inc. (NYSE:EGY). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to MMAC’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| CCNC | 3 | 657 | 3 |
| ALRN | 6 | 13846 | 5 |
| XELA | 8 | 10142 | 4 |
| BOXL | 3 | 664 | -1 |
| SLS | 4 | 953 | 3 |
| FENG | 5 | 2684 | 0 |
| EGY | 6 | 11733 | -1 |
| Average | 5 | 5811 | 1.9 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $6 million. That figure was $8 million in MMAC’s case. Exela Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:XELA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Code Chain New Continent Limited (NASDAQ:CCNC) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. MMA Capital Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MMAC) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for MMAC is 38. 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 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 17.2% in 2021 through June 11th and still beat the market by 3.3 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on MMAC as the stock returned 18.9% since the end of the first quarter (through 6/11) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
