Is SINA Corp (SINA) A Good Stock To Buy?

Legendary investors such as Leon Cooperman and Seth Klarman earn enormous amounts of money for themselves and their investors by doing in-depth research on small-cap stocks that big brokerage houses don’t publish. Small cap stocks -especially when they are screened well- can generate substantial outperformance versus a boring index fund. That’s why we analyze the activity of those elite funds in these small-cap stocks. In the following paragraphs, we will analyze SINA Corp (NASDAQ:SINA) from the perspective of those elite funds.

SINA Corp (NASDAQ:SINA) investors should be aware of an increase in hedge fund sentiment of late, although the level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as Medical Properties Trust, Inc. (NYSE:MPW), Tribune Media Co (NYSE:TRCO), and Euronet Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:EEFT) to gather more data points.

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

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With all of this in mind, we’re going to take a gander at the fresh action encompassing SINA Corp (NASDAQ:SINA).

How are hedge funds trading SINA Corp (NASDAQ:SINA)?

At the end of September, 33 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on SINA Corp, up by 57% from the end of the second quarter. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Platinum Asset Management, led by Kerr Neilson, holds the most valuable position in SINA Corp (NASDAQ:SINA). Platinum Asset Management has a $229.1 million position in the stock, comprising 5.3% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Lei Zhang of Hillhouse Capital Management, with a $104.9 million position; 2.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other professional money managers that are bullish include Robert Henry Lynch’s Aristeia Capital and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital.

As one would reasonably expect, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. John Burbank’s Passport Capital initiated the most outsized position in SINA Corp (NASDAQ:SINA). Passport Capital had $83.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies also made a $23.7 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new SINA investors: Louis Bacon’s Moore Global Investments, Andy Redleaf’s Whitebox Advisors, and John Burbank’s Passport Capital.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as SINA Corp (NASDAQ:SINA) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Medical Properties Trust, Inc. (NYSE:MPW), Tribune Media Co (NYSE:TRCO), Euronet Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:EEFT), and LATAM Airlines Group SA (ADR) (NYSE:LFL). This group of stocks’ market values resemble SINA’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 20 investors with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $436 million. That figure was $797 million in SINA’s case. Tribune Media Co (NYSE:TRCO) is the most popular stock in this table with 25 funds holding shares. On the other hand LATAM Airlines Group SA (ADR) (NYSE:LFL) is the least popular one with only eight bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks SINA Corp (NASDAQ:SINA) is more popular among hedge funds. Considering that hedge funds are fond of this stock in relation to its market cap peers, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and potentially include it in your portfolio.