Billionaire hedge fund managers such as Steve Cohen and Stan Druckenmiller can generate millions or even billions of dollars every year by pinning down high-potential small-cap stocks and pouring cash into these candidates. Small-cap stocks are overlooked by most investors, brokerage houses, and financial services hubs, while the unlimited research abilities of the big players within the hedge fund industry can easily identify the undervalued and high-potential stocks that reside the ignored corners of equity markets. There are numerous small-cap stocks that have turned out to be great winners, which is one of the main reasons the Insider Monkey team pays close attention to the hedge fund activity in relation to these stocks.
Viad Corp (NYSE:VVI) was in 14 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. VVI investors should pay attention to a decrease in hedge fund interest in recent months. There were 15 hedge funds in our database with VVI positions at the end of the previous quarter. 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 National Western Life Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:NWLI), Tobira Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:TBRA), and Workiva Inc (NYSE:WK) to gather more data points.
Follow Viad Corp (NYSE:VVI)
Follow Viad Corp (NYSE:VVI)
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, let’s take a peek at the latest action regarding Viad Corp (NYSE:VVI).
How are hedge funds trading Viad Corp (NYSE:VVI)?
At Q3’s end, a total of 14 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a drop of 7% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in VVI over the last 5 quarters. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions).
When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Thomas E. Claugus’ GMT Capital holds the largest position in Viad Corp (NYSE:VVI) which has a $70.9 million position in the stock, comprising 1.4% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Michael M. Rothenberg of Moab Capital Partners which holds a $32 million position; 10.4% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other hedge funds and institutional investors that are bullish encompass Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies, Martin Whitman’s Third Avenue Management and Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management. We should note that Moab Capital Partners is among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.
We already know that not all hedge funds are bullish on the stock and some hedge funds actually dropped their positions entirely. Interestingly, Peter S. Park’s Park West Asset Management dropped the biggest investment of all the hedgies watched by Insider Monkey, worth about $6.2 million in stock. David Brown’s fund, Hawk Ridge Management, also dumped its stock, about $1.3 million worth.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Viad Corp (NYSE:VVI). We will take a look at National Western Life Insurance Company (NASDAQ:NWLI), Tobira Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:TBRA), Workiva Inc (NYSE:WK), and Rapid7 Inc (NASDAQ:RPD). All of these stocks’ market caps match VVI’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| NWLI | 7 | 13390 | 0 |
| TBRA | 15 | 373476 | 8 |
| WK | 7 | 55695 | 3 |
| RPD | 7 | 16593 | 0 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 9 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $115 million. That figure was $128 million in VVI’s case. Tobira Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:TBRA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand National Western Life Insurance Company (NASDAQ:NWLI) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Viad Corp (NYSE:VVI) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard TBRA might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.
Disclosure: None
