The financial regulations require hedge funds and wealthy investors that exceeded the $100 million holdings threshold to file a report that shows their positions at the end of every quarter. Even though it isn’t the intention, these filings to a certain extent level the playing field for ordinary investors. The latest round of 13F filings disclosed the funds’ positions on March 31st. We at Insider Monkey have made an extensive database of more than 866 of those established hedge funds and famous value investors’ filings. In this article, we analyze how these elite funds and prominent investors traded ShiftPixy, Inc. (NASDAQ:PIXY) based on those filings.
Is PIXY a good stock to buy? ShiftPixy, Inc. (NASDAQ:PIXY) was in 4 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic was 2. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. PIXY has experienced an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers in recent months. There were 2 hedge funds in our database with PIXY positions at the end of the fourth quarter. Our calculations also showed that PIXY isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).
So, why do we pay attention to hedge fund sentiment before making any investment decisions? Our research has shown that hedge funds’ small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 115 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). We have been able to outperform the passive index funds by tracking the moves of corporate insiders and hedge funds, and we believe small investors can benefit a lot from reading hedge fund investor letters and 13F filings.
Ryan Tolkin, CIO of Schonfeld Strategic Advisors
At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, an activist hedge fund wants to buy this $27 biotech stock for $50. So, we recommended a long position to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 10 best battery stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. 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 homepage. Keeping this in mind let’s take a peek at the new hedge fund action regarding ShiftPixy, Inc. (NASDAQ:PIXY).
Do Hedge Funds Think PIXY Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At the end of the first quarter, a total of 4 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 100% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 1 hedge funds with a bullish position in PIXY a year ago. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were adding to their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Renaissance Technologies, holds the number one position in ShiftPixy, Inc. (NASDAQ:PIXY). Renaissance Technologies has a $0.3 million position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, which holds a $0.1 million call position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other hedge funds and institutional investors that are bullish include John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and Ryan Tolkin (CIO)’s Schonfeld Strategic Advisors. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Schonfeld Strategic Advisors allocated the biggest weight to ShiftPixy, Inc. (NASDAQ:PIXY), around 0.0008% of its 13F portfolio. Renaissance Technologies is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 0.0004 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to PIXY.
As aggregate interest increased, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Renaissance Technologies, assembled the largest position in ShiftPixy, Inc. (NASDAQ:PIXY). Renaissance Technologies had $0.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group also initiated a $0.1 million position during the quarter. The only other fund with a new position in the stock is Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as ShiftPixy, Inc. (NASDAQ:PIXY) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Virios Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VIRI), NLS Pharmaceutics AG (NASDAQ:NLSP), Tremont Mortgage Trust (NASDAQ:TRMT), Broadway Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:BYFC), Comstock Holding Companies, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHCI), China Jo Jo Drugstores Inc (NASDAQ:CJJD), and Air Industries Group (NYSE:AIRI). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to PIXY’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| VIRI | 3 | 3782 | 1 |
| NLSP | 3 | 799 | 3 |
| TRMT | 3 | 1284 | 1 |
| BYFC | 3 | 1142 | -1 |
| CHCI | 2 | 2312 | -1 |
| CJJD | 6 | 7692 | 1 |
| AIRI | 1 | 69 | -1 |
| Average | 3 | 2440 | 0.4 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $2 million. That figure was $1 million in PIXY’s case. China Jo Jo Drugstores Inc (NASDAQ:CJJD) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Air Industries Group (NYSE:AIRI) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. ShiftPixy, Inc. (NASDAQ:PIXY) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for PIXY is 67. 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 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 17.2% in 2021 through June 11th and still beat the market by 3.3 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on PIXY as the stock returned 22.6% since the end of Q1 (through 6/11) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
