Where Do Hedge Funds Stand On Metalla Royalty & Streaming Ltd. (MTA)?

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 Metalla Royalty & Streaming Ltd. (NYSE:MTA).

Metalla Royalty & Streaming Ltd. (NYSE:MTA) was in 5 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic was 4. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. MTA has seen an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds of late. There were 2 hedge funds in our database with MTA holdings at the end of December. Our calculations also showed that MTA 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.

Eric Sprott of Sprott Asset Management

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, an activist hedge fund owns nearly 40% of this $23 biotech stock and is trying to buy the rest for around $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. With all of this in mind let’s analyze the fresh hedge fund action regarding Metalla Royalty & Streaming Ltd. (NYSE:MTA).

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

Heading into the second quarter of 2021, a total of 5 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 150% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards MTA over the last 23 quarters. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Among these funds, Two Sigma Advisors held the most valuable stake in Metalla Royalty & Streaming Ltd. (NYSE:MTA), which was worth $0.5 million at the end of the fourth quarter. On the second spot was Citadel Investment Group which amassed $0.3 million worth of shares. Millennium Management, Sprott Asset Management, and ExodusPoint Capital were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Sprott Asset Management allocated the biggest weight to Metalla Royalty & Streaming Ltd. (NYSE:MTA), around 0.01% of its 13F portfolio. ExodusPoint Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.0032 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to MTA.

Consequently, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, initiated the most valuable position in Metalla Royalty & Streaming Ltd. (NYSE:MTA). Citadel Investment Group had $0.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Israel Englander’s Millennium Management also initiated a $0.3 million position during the quarter. The only other fund with a brand new MTA position is Michael Gelband’s ExodusPoint Capital.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Metalla Royalty & Streaming Ltd. (NYSE:MTA). We will take a look at CONSOL Energy Inc. (NYSE:CEIX), Mistras Group, Inc. (NYSE:MG), MiX Telematics Limited (NYSE:MIXT), Artesian Resources Corporation (NASDAQ:ARTNA), Fluent, Inc. (NASDAQ:FLNT), iBio, Inc. (NYSE:IBIO), and Laird Superfood, Inc. (NYSE:LSF). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to MTA’s market value.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 7.6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $20 million. That figure was $2 million in MTA’s case. CONSOL Energy Inc. (NYSE:CEIX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Artesian Resources Corporation (NASDAQ:ARTNA) is the least popular one with only 2 bullish hedge fund positions. Metalla Royalty & Streaming Ltd. (NYSE:MTA) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for MTA is 49.5. 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 17.4% in 2021 through June 18th and still beat the market by 6.1 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on MTA as the stock returned 13.4% since the end of the first quarter (through 6/18) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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

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