Should You Buy Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (NM)?

Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (NYSE:NM) investors should be aware of an increase in hedge fund interest recently.

In the financial world, there are plenty of indicators shareholders can use to monitor Mr. Market. A couple of the most underrated are hedge fund and insider trading interest. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite investment managers can outclass their index-focused peers by a very impressive amount (see just how much).

Just as important, bullish insider trading sentiment is a second way to parse down the investments you’re interested in. There are plenty of motivations for an executive to get rid of shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would behave bullishly. Several empirical studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this strategy if investors understand what to do (learn more here).

With these “truths” under our belt, let’s take a glance at the key action regarding Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (NYSE:NM).

How are hedge funds trading Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (NYSE:NM)?

At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 6 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 20% from the previous quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings meaningfully.

When looking at the hedgies we track, Timothy S. Peterson’s Regiment Capital had the most valuable position in Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (NYSE:NM), worth close to $12.6 million, accounting for 2.4% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Whitebox Advisors, managed by Andy Redleaf, which held a $0.6 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other peers with similar optimism include John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.

Now, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. Two Sigma Advisors, managed by John Overdeck and David Siegel, initiated the most valuable position in Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (NYSE:NM). Two Sigma Advisors had 0.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw also made a $0 million investment in the stock during the quarter.

How are insiders trading Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (NYSE:NM)?

Insider buying is most useful when the company in question has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the last six-month time period, Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (NYSE:NM) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s go over hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (NYSE:NM). These stocks are Capital Product Partners L.P. (NASDAQ:CPLP), Nordic American Tanker Ltd (NYSE:NAT), Safe Bulkers, Inc. (NYSE:SB), Ultrapetrol (Bahamas) Limited (NASDAQ:ULTR), and Danaos Corporation (NYSE:DAC). All of these stocks are in the shipping industry and their market caps are similar to NM’s market cap.