Is Triple-S Management Corp.(NYSE:GTS) a good place to invest some of your money right now? We can gain invaluable insight to help us answer that question by studying the investment trends of top investors, who employ world-class Ivy League graduates, who are given immense resources and industry contacts to put their financial expertise to work. The top picks of these firms have historically outperformed the market when we account for known risk factors, making them very valuable investment ideas.
Is Triple-S Management Corp.(NYSE:GTS) an outstanding stock to buy now? Prominent investors are getting less optimistic. The number of bullish hedge fund positions fell by 1 in recent months. Our calculations also showed that GTS isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds. GTS was in 12 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the fourth quarter of 2018. There were 13 hedge funds in our database with GTS positions at the end of the previous quarter.
Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research has shown that hedge funds’ large-cap stock picks indeed failed to beat the market between 1999 and 2016. However, we were able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the market by 32 percentage points since May 2014 through March 12, 2019 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that’ll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 27.5% through March 12, 2019. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
We’re going to take a look at the latest hedge fund action encompassing Triple-S Management Corp.(NYSE:GTS).
How are hedge funds trading Triple-S Management Corp.(NYSE:GTS)?
At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 12 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -8% from the second quarter of 2018. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards GTS over the last 14 quarters. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
More specifically, Pzena Investment Management was the largest shareholder of Triple-S Management Corp.(NYSE:GTS), with a stake worth $23.6 million reported as of the end of December. Trailing Pzena Investment Management was AQR Capital Management, which amassed a stake valued at $10.6 million. Renaissance Technologies, D E Shaw, and GLG Partners were also very fond of the stock, giving the stock large weights in their portfolios.
Judging by the fact that Triple-S Management Corp.(NYSE:GTS) has witnessed falling interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, we can see that there were a few hedgies that decided to sell off their full holdings heading into Q3. Intriguingly, David Costen Haley’s HBK Investments cut the largest stake of the “upper crust” of funds tracked by Insider Monkey, worth an estimated $0.6 million in stock. Paul Tudor Jones’s fund, Tudor Investment Corp, also dropped its stock, about $0.5 million worth. These moves are important to note, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 1 funds heading into Q3.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Triple-S Management Corp.(NYSE:GTS) but similarly valued. These stocks are AVROBIO, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVRO), Anworth Mortgage Asset Corporation (NYSE:ANH), Quotient Limited (NASDAQ:QTNT), and New Frontier Corp (NYSE:NFC). This group of stocks’ market valuations match GTS’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| AVRO | 6 | 66693 | -8 |
| ANH | 9 | 26269 | 3 |
| QTNT | 19 | 203487 | 0 |
| NFC | 14 | 67411 | -1 |
| Average | 12 | 90965 | -1.5 |
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 $91 million. That figure was $61 million in GTS’s case. Quotient Limited (NASDAQ:QTNT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand AVROBIO, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVRO) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Triple-S Management Corp.(NYSE:GTS) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our calculations showed that top 15 most popular stocks) among hedge funds returned 24.2% through April 22nd and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by more than 7 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on GTS, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 21.8% and outperformed the market as well.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
