Is Yatra Online (YTRA) A Good Stock To Buy Now?

The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. We have processed the filings of the more than 817 world-class investment firms that we track and now have access to the collective wisdom contained in these filings, which are based on their September 30 holdings, data that is available nowhere else. Should you consider Yatra Online, Inc. (NASDAQ:YTRA) for your portfolio? We’ll look to this invaluable collective wisdom for the answer.

Is Yatra Online (YTRA) a good stock to buy now? YTRA investors should be aware of a decrease in hedge fund interest lately. Yatra Online, Inc. (NASDAQ:YTRA) was in 8 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistics is 11. Our calculations also showed that YTRA isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

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 was able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 66 percentage points since March 2017 (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 13% through November 17th. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 15 best blue chip stocks to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. 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. With all of this in mind we’re going to take a gander at the key hedge fund action encompassing Yatra Online, Inc. (NASDAQ:YTRA).

What does smart money think about Yatra Online, Inc. (NASDAQ:YTRA)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 8 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -27% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 7 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in YTRA a year ago. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were adding to their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

More specifically, MAK Capital One was the largest shareholder of Yatra Online, Inc. (NASDAQ:YTRA), with a stake worth $5.9 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing MAK Capital One was Nantahala Capital Management, which amassed a stake valued at $4 million. Altai Capital, MIC Capital Partners, and Renaissance Technologies 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 Altai Capital allocated the biggest weight to Yatra Online, Inc. (NASDAQ:YTRA), around 3.89% of its 13F portfolio. MAK Capital One is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 2.46 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to YTRA.

Since Yatra Online, Inc. (NASDAQ:YTRA) has experienced declining sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s easy to see that there were a few hedge funds that elected to cut their entire stakes in the third quarter. Intriguingly, Steven Boyd’s Armistice Capital dumped the largest investment of the “upper crust” of funds watched by Insider Monkey, worth close to $1.2 million in stock. Hal Mintz’s fund, Sabby Capital, also dropped its stock, about $0.4 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 3 funds in the third quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Yatra Online, Inc. (NASDAQ:YTRA) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Happiness Biotech Group Limited (NASDAQ:HAPP), Village Bank and Trust Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:VBFC), CLPS Incorporation (NASDAQ:CLPS), Miragen Therapeutics (NASDAQ:MGEN), T.A.T. Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ:TATT), RF Industries, Ltd. (NASDAQ:RFIL), and Forward Pharma A/S (NASDAQ:FWP). All of these stocks’ market caps match YTRA’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 1.7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $2 million. That figure was $15 million in YTRA’s case. RF Industries, Ltd. (NASDAQ:RFIL) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Village Bank and Trust Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:VBFC) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Yatra Online, Inc. (NASDAQ:YTRA) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for YTRA is 73.8. 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 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.3% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10 percentage points. These stocks returned 31.6% in 2020 through December 2nd but still managed to beat the market by 16 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on YTRA as the stock returned 158.7% since the end of September (through 12/2) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were clearly right about piling into this stock relative to other stocks with similar market capitalizations.

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