The 800+ hedge funds and famous money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the third quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of September 30. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund portfolios. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards Petmed Express Inc (NASDAQ:PETS).
Hedge fund interest in Petmed Express Inc (NASDAQ:PETS) shares was flat at the end of last quarter. This is usually a negative indicator. Our calculations also showed that PETS 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). At the end of this article we will also compare PETS to other stocks including Sinovac Biotech Ltd. (NASDAQ:SVA), Inogen Inc (NASDAQ:INGN), and OFG Bancorp (NYSE:OFG) to get a better sense of its popularity.
Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
To the average investor there are a large number of signals shareholders have at their disposal to size up their holdings. Two of the most useful signals are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best investment managers can outpace their index-focused peers by a very impressive amount (see the details here).
Louis Navellier of Navellier & Associates
At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 15 best blue chip stocks to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. 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 website. With all of this in mind let’s take a look at the new hedge fund action surrounding Petmed Express Inc (NASDAQ:PETS).
Do Hedge Funds Think PETS Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At the end of September, a total of 19 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 0% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 13 hedge funds with a bullish position in PETS a year ago. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
The largest stake in Petmed Express Inc (NASDAQ:PETS) was held by Renaissance Technologies, which reported holding $48.5 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by GLG Partners with a $21 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Arrowstreet Capital, Intrinsic Edge Capital, and Citadel Investment Group. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Endurant Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Petmed Express Inc (NASDAQ:PETS), around 0.99% of its 13F portfolio. Intrinsic Edge Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.48 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to PETS.
Judging by the fact that Petmed Express Inc (NASDAQ:PETS) has faced a decline in interest from hedge fund managers, logic holds that there was a specific group of fund managers that elected to cut their positions entirely last quarter. At the top of the heap, Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp dropped the largest investment of the 750 funds followed by Insider Monkey, valued at an estimated $1.6 million in stock. Bruce Kovner’s fund, Caxton Associates LP, also said goodbye to its stock, about $0.6 million worth. These moves are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Petmed Express Inc (NASDAQ:PETS). We will take a look at Sinovac Biotech Ltd. (NASDAQ:SVA), Inogen Inc (NASDAQ:INGN), OFG Bancorp (NYSE:OFG), B. Riley Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ:RILY), Pampa Energia S.A. (NYSE:PAM), Century Aluminum Co (NASDAQ:CENX), and Denny’s Corporation (NASDAQ:DENN). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to PETS’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| SVA | 3 | 67010 | 0 |
| INGN | 19 | 37302 | 0 |
| OFG | 12 | 15248 | 1 |
| RILY | 19 | 88617 | 3 |
| PAM | 8 | 30973 | -2 |
| CENX | 11 | 35940 | -1 |
| DENN | 20 | 65004 | -3 |
| Average | 13.1 | 48585 | -0.3 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 13.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $49 million. That figure was $113 million in PETS’s case. Denny’s Corporation (NASDAQ:DENN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Sinovac Biotech Ltd. (NASDAQ:SVA) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. Petmed Express Inc (NASDAQ:PETS) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for PETS is 82.1. 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. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. 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 30.7% in 2020 through December 14th and beat the market again by 15.8 percentage points. Unfortunately PETS wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on PETS were disappointed as the stock returned -2.8% since the end of September (through 12/14) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds as many of these stocks already outperformed the market so far this year.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
