Our extensive research has shown that imitating the smart money can generate significant returns for retail investors, which is why we track more than 700 prominent money managers and analyze their quarterly 13F filings. The stocks that are heavily bought by hedge funds historically outperformed the market, though there is no shortage of high profile failures like hedge funds’ recent losses in Facebook. Let’s take a closer look at what the funds we track think about RadNet Inc. (NASDAQ:RDNT) in this article.
RadNet Inc. (NASDAQ:RDNT) shares haven’t seen a lot of action during the third quarter. Overall, hedge fund sentiment was unchanged. The stock was in 11 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2018. 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 Sierra Wireless, Inc. (NASDAQ:SWIR), Cohu, Inc. (NASDAQ:COHU), and Oritani Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:ORIT) to gather more data points.
Today there are a lot of signals shareholders have at their disposal to assess their holdings. A couple of the less utilized signals are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best money managers can outperform the market by a superb amount (see the details here).
Cliff Asness of AQR Capital Management
Let’s review the new hedge fund action regarding RadNet Inc. (NASDAQ:RDNT).
How are hedge funds trading RadNet Inc. (NASDAQ:RDNT)?
At Q3’s end, a total of 11 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, no change from the second quarter of 2018. On the other hand, there were a total of 14 hedge funds with a bullish position in RDNT at the beginning of this year. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
The largest stake in RadNet Inc. (NASDAQ:RDNT) was held by Moab Capital Partners, which reported holding $34.8 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Renaissance Technologies with a $32.7 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included AQR Capital Management, Cheyne Capital, and PEAK6 Capital Management.
Since RadNet Inc. (NASDAQ:RDNT) has experienced declining sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s safe to say that there exists a select few hedgies that elected to cut their entire stakes by the end of the third quarter. Intriguingly, Sander Gerber’s Hudson Bay Capital Management dumped the largest investment of the 700 funds tracked by Insider Monkey, totaling about $0.2 million in stock. Dmitry Balyasny’s fund, Balyasny Asset Management, also sold off its stock, about $0.2 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as total hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as RadNet Inc. (NASDAQ:RDNT) but similarly valued. These stocks are Sierra Wireless, Inc. (NASDAQ:SWIR), Cohu, Inc. (NASDAQ:COHU), Oritani Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:ORIT), and Costamare Inc (NYSE:CMRE). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to RDNT’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWIR | 8 | 34353 | 1 |
| COHU | 15 | 83976 | 5 |
| ORIT | 8 | 39981 | -3 |
| CMRE | 8 | 24453 | 1 |
| Average | 9.75 | 45691 | 1 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 9.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $46 million. That figure was $100 million in RDNT’s case. Cohu, Inc. (NASDAQ:COHU) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Sierra Wireless, Inc. (NASDAQ:SWIR) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. RadNet Inc. (NASDAQ:RDNT) 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 COHU might be a better candidate to consider a long position.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
