Were Hedge Funds Right About Anterix Inc. (ATEX)?

A whopping number of 13F filings filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been processed by Insider Monkey so that individual investors can look at the overall hedge fund sentiment towards the stocks included in their watchlists. These freshly-submitted public filings disclose money managers’ equity positions as of the end of the three-month period that ended March 31st, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment on Anterix Inc. (NASDAQ:ATEX).

Anterix Inc. (NASDAQ:ATEX) was in 16 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 17. ATEX investors should be aware of an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers in recent months. There were 15 hedge funds in our database with ATEX positions at the end of the fourth quarter. Our calculations also showed that ATEX isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).

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. Hedge funds have more than $3.5 trillion in assets under management, so you can’t expect their entire portfolios to beat the market by large margins. 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 115 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). So you can still find a lot of gems by following hedge funds’ moves today.

Daniel Gold of QVT Financial

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, pet market is growing at a 7% annual rate and is expected to reach $110 billion in 2021. So, we are checking out the 5 best stocks for animal lovers. We go through lists like the 15 best Jim Cramer stocks to identify the next Tesla that will deliver outsized returns. 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. With all of this in mind we’re going to view the recent hedge fund action surrounding Anterix Inc. (NASDAQ:ATEX).

Do Hedge Funds Think ATEX Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At first quarter’s end, a total of 16 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 7% from the fourth quarter of 2020. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in ATEX over the last 23 quarters. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

The largest stake in Anterix Inc. (NASDAQ:ATEX) was held by Owl Creek Asset Management, which reported holding $255.2 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by MFP Investors with a $26.5 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included QVT Financial, Heard Capital, and Brahman Capital. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Owl Creek Asset Management allocated the biggest weight to Anterix Inc. (NASDAQ:ATEX), around 8.63% of its 13F portfolio. Roubaix Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 5.83 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to ATEX.

Now, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Brahman Capital, managed by Mitch Kuflik and Rob Sobel, assembled the biggest position in Anterix Inc. (NASDAQ:ATEX). Brahman Capital had $9.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Dov Gertzulin’s DG Capital Management also initiated a $9.2 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new ATEX investors: Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp, John Brennan’s Sirios Capital Management, and Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Anterix Inc. (NASDAQ:ATEX). These stocks are Chimerix Inc (NASDAQ:CMRX), Caleres Inc (NYSE:CAL), Trean Insurance Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:TIG), AxoGen, Inc. (NASDAQ:AXGN), CM Life Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:CMLF), Northfield Bancorp, Inc. (Staten Island, NY) (NASDAQ:NFBK), and Collegium Pharmaceutical Inc (NASDAQ:COLL). This group of stocks’ market caps match ATEX’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 15.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $134 million. That figure was $369 million in ATEX’s case. CM Life Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:CMLF) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Northfield Bancorp, Inc. (Staten Island, NY) (NASDAQ:NFBK) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Anterix Inc. (NASDAQ:ATEX) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for ATEX is 55.1. 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 28.5% in 2021 through July 23rd and still beat the market by 10.1 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on ATEX as the stock returned 27% since the end of Q1 (through 7/23) 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.