Should I Buy Gilat Satellite Networks (GILT)?

At Insider Monkey, we pore over the filings of nearly 817 top investment firms every quarter, a process we have now completed for the latest reporting period. The data we’ve gathered as a result gives us access to a wealth of collective knowledge based on these firms’ portfolio holdings as of September 30. In this article, we will use that wealth of knowledge to determine whether or not Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. (NASDAQ:GILT) makes for a good investment right now.

Is Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. (NASDAQ:GILT) a bargain? Investors who are in the know were turning less bullish. The number of long hedge fund bets fell by 1 lately. Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. (NASDAQ:GILT) was in 7 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2020. The all time high for this statistics is 13. Our calculations also showed that GILT 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.

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Eric Singer of VIEX Capital

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What have hedge funds been doing with Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. (NASDAQ:GILT)?

At the end of September, a total of 7 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -13% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards GILT over the last 21 quarters. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Renaissance Technologies, holds the most valuable position in Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. (NASDAQ:GILT). Renaissance Technologies has a $15.7 million position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is John Orrico of Water Island Capital, with a $8.6 million position; 0.7% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining members of the smart money that hold long positions include Gavin Saitowitz and Cisco J. del Valle’s Springbok Capital, Eric Singer’s VIEX Capital Advisors and Frederick DiSanto’s Ancora Advisors. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position VIEX Capital Advisors allocated the biggest weight to Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. (NASDAQ:GILT), around 1.96% of its 13F portfolio. Water Island Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.73 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to GILT.

Since Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. (NASDAQ:GILT) has witnessed bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, it’s safe to say that there were a few hedge funds that slashed their entire stakes heading into Q4. Intriguingly, Robert Emil Zoellner’s Alpine Associates dropped the largest investment of all the hedgies watched by Insider Monkey, totaling about $8.6 million in stock, and Michael Gelband’s ExodusPoint Capital was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $0.1 million worth. These moves are interesting, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 1 funds heading into Q4.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. (NASDAQ:GILT). We will take a look at Gladstone Investment Corporation (NASDAQ:GAIN), Village Farms International, Inc. (NASDAQ:VFF), NeoPhotonics Corp (NYSE:NPTN), CooTek (Cayman) Inc. (NYSE:CTK), Covenant Logistics Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CVLG), Vitru Limited (NASDAQ:VTRU), and Metalla Royalty & Streaming Ltd. (NYSE:MTA). All of these stocks’ market caps match GILT’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 7.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $14 million. That figure was $29 million in GILT’s case. NeoPhotonics Corp (NYSE:NPTN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand CooTek (Cayman) Inc. (NYSE:CTK) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. (NASDAQ:GILT) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for GILT is 38.9. 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 gained 31.6% in 2020 through December 2nd and still beat the market by 16 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on GILT as the stock returned 17.1% since the end of the third quarter (through 12/2) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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