Is RHI Stock A Buy or Sell?

Our extensive research has shown that imitating the smart money can generate significant returns for retail investors, which is why we track nearly 900 active prominent money managers and analyze their quarterly 13F filings. The stocks that are heavily bought by hedge funds historically outperformed the market, though there is no shortage of high profile failures like hedge funds’ 2018 losses in Facebook and Apple. Let’s take a closer look at what the funds we track think about Robert Half International Inc. (NYSE:RHI) in this article.

Is RHI stock a buy? Robert Half International Inc. (NYSE:RHI) has experienced a decrease in hedge fund sentiment in recent months. Robert Half International Inc. (NYSE:RHI) was in 27 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of December. The all time high for this statistic is 29. Our calculations also showed that RHI isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q4 rankings).

Bruce Kovner of Caxton Associates LP

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, auto parts business is a recession resistant business, so we are taking a closer look at this discount auto parts stock that is growing at a 196% annualized rate. We go through lists like the 15 best micro-cap stocks to buy now to identify the next stock with 10x upside potential. 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. Keeping this in mind we’re going to take a gander at the fresh hedge fund action regarding Robert Half International Inc. (NYSE:RHI).

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

At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 27 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -7% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 23 hedge funds with a bullish position in RHI a year ago. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

The largest stake in Robert Half International Inc. (NYSE:RHI) was held by AQR Capital Management, which reported holding $160.2 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by Millennium Management with a $17.9 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Renaissance Technologies, Adage Capital Management, and Tudor Investment Corp. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Prospector Partners allocated the biggest weight to Robert Half International Inc. (NYSE:RHI), around 0.5% of its 13F portfolio. Algert Global is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 0.36 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to RHI.

Because Robert Half International Inc. (NYSE:RHI) has witnessed bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, we can see that there lies a certain “tier” of funds who were dropping their full holdings last quarter. At the top of the heap, Clint Carlson’s Carlson Capital dropped the largest investment of the “upper crust” of funds monitored by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $30 million in stock. Thomas Bailard’s fund, Bailard Inc, also dropped its stock, about $2.6 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 2 funds last quarter.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Robert Half International Inc. (NYSE:RHI). We will take a look at National Retail Properties, Inc. (NYSE:NNN), Sealed Air Corporation (NYSE:SEE), Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings Inc. (NYSE:KNX), Novavax, Inc. (NASDAQ:NVAX), McAfee Corp. (NASDAQ:MCFE), Syneos Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYNH), and First Horizon Corporation (NYSE:FHN). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble RHI’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 28 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $556 million. That figure was $236 million in RHI’s case. Novavax, Inc. (NASDAQ:NVAX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand National Retail Properties, Inc. (NYSE:NNN) is the least popular one with only 14 bullish hedge fund positions. Robert Half International Inc. (NYSE:RHI) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for RHI is 59.2. 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 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 81.2% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 26 percentage points. These stocks gained 12.3% in 2021 through April 19th and still beat the market by 0.9 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on RHI as the stock returned 31% since the end of the fourth quarter (through 4/19) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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