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 The E.W. Scripps Company (NYSE:SSP).
Is SSP a good stock to buy? The E.W. Scripps Company (NYSE:SSP) has experienced an increase in enthusiasm from smart money lately. The E.W. Scripps Company (NYSE:SSP) was in 22 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 25. Our calculations also showed that SSP isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).
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Do Hedge Funds Think SSP Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At first quarter’s end, a total of 22 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 83% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards SSP over the last 23 quarters. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
More specifically, GAMCO Investors was the largest shareholder of The E.W. Scripps Company (NYSE:SSP), with a stake worth $75.3 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing GAMCO Investors was Minerva Advisors, which amassed a stake valued at $10.1 million. Contrarius Investment Management, Arrowstreet Capital, and Millennium Management were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Minerva Advisors allocated the biggest weight to The E.W. Scripps Company (NYSE:SSP), around 5.53% of its 13F portfolio. Litespeed Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 2.66 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to SSP.
Now, key hedge funds were breaking ground themselves. Contrarius Investment Management, managed by Stephen Mildenhall, created the largest position in The E.W. Scripps Company (NYSE:SSP). Contrarius Investment Management had $7.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital also initiated a $5.4 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Richard Chilton’s Chilton Investment Company, Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management, and Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to The E.W. Scripps Company (NYSE:SSP). We will take a look at Tattooed Chef, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTCF), Vuzix Corporation (NASDAQ:VUZI), Immunovant, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMVT), Enerpac Tool Group Corp. (NYSE:EPAC), Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD), Delek Logistics Partners LP (NYSE:DKL), and FARO Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:FARO). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to SSP’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| TTCF | 10 | 58744 | -1 |
| VUZI | 14 | 74041 | 4 |
| IMVT | 26 | 131007 | -10 |
| EPAC | 7 | 114807 | -4 |
| HTLD | 12 | 50604 | -1 |
| DKL | 1 | 2627 | 0 |
| FARO | 14 | 195684 | 1 |
| Average | 12 | 89645 | -1.6 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 12 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $90 million. That figure was $126 million in SSP’s case. Immunovant, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMVT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Delek Logistics Partners LP (NYSE:DKL) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. The E.W. Scripps Company (NYSE:SSP) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for SSP is 78.4. 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. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. 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 23.8% in 2021 through July 16th and beat the market again by 7.7 percentage points. Unfortunately SSP wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on SSP were disappointed as the stock returned -0.8% since the end of March (through 7/16) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as many of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.
Follow E.w. Scripps Co (NYSE:SSP)
Follow E.w. Scripps Co (NYSE:SSP)
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
