Hedge Funds Have Never Been This Bullish On Carbonite Inc (CARB)
After several tireless days we have finished crunching the numbers from nearly 750 13F filings issued by the elite hedge funds and other investment firms that we track at Insider Monkey, which disclosed those firms' equity portfolios as of September 30th. The results of that effort will be put on display in this article, as we share valuable insight into the smart money sentiment towards Carbonite Inc (NASDAQ:CARB).
Carbonite Inc (NASDAQ:CARB) was in 24 hedge funds' portfolios at the end of September. CARB investors should pay attention to an increase in hedge fund interest recently. There were 19 hedge funds in our database with CARB holdings at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that CARB isn't among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video below for Q2 rankings).
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
In the eyes of most investors, hedge funds are viewed as worthless, outdated investment vehicles of years past. While there are more than 8000 funds trading today, We hone in on the moguls of this group, around 750 funds. These investment experts preside over bulk of the hedge fund industry's total asset base, and by keeping track of their finest equity investments, Insider Monkey has formulated many investment strategies that have historically outperformed the broader indices. Insider Monkey's flagship short hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points per annum since its inception in May 2014. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 27.8% since February 2017 (through November 21st) even though the market was up more than 39% during the same period. We just shared a list of 7 short targets in our latest quarterly update .
[caption id="attachment_733253" align="aligncenter" width="473"]
Arnaud Ajdler of Engine Capital[/caption]
Unlike the largest US hedge funds that are convinced Dow will soar past 40,000 or the world's most bearish hedge fund that's more convinced than ever that a crash is coming, our long-short investment strategy doesn't rely on bull or bear markets to deliver double digit returns. We only rely on the best performing hedge funds' buy/sell signals. We're going to take a look at the fresh hedge fund action surrounding Carbonite Inc (NASDAQ:CARB).
Hedge fund activity in Carbonite Inc (NASDAQ:CARB)
At the end of the third quarter, a total of 24 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 26% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards CARB over the last 17 quarters. 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 Carbonite Inc (NASDAQ:CARB) was held by Elliott Management, which reported holding $17 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Stadium Capital Management with a $14.6 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included VIEX Capital Advisors, Maverick Capital, and Engine Capital. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Stadium Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Carbonite Inc (NASDAQ:CARB), around 8.76% of its portfolio. VIEX Capital Advisors is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 6.71 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to CARB.
As aggregate interest increased, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Elliott Management, managed by Paul Singer, assembled the most valuable position in Carbonite Inc (NASDAQ:CARB). Elliott Management had $17 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Eric Singer's VIEX Capital Advisors also made a $11.3 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Arnaud Ajdler's Engine Capital, Cynthia Paul's Lynrock Lake, and Ken Griffin's Citadel Investment Group.
Let's also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks - not necessarily in the same industry as Carbonite Inc (NASDAQ:CARB) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Digital Turbine Inc (NASDAQ:APPS), Intersect ENT Inc (NASDAQ:XENT), First Financial Corp (NASDAQ:THFF), and Peoples Utah Bancorp (NASDAQ:PUB). This group of stocks' market caps match CARB's market cap.
[table] Ticker, No of HFs with positions, Total Value of HF Positions (x1000), Change in HF Position APPS,19,32614,8 XENT,20,209156,5 THFF,8,14815,-1 PUB,6,16721,3 Average,13.25,68327,3.75 [/table]
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 13.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $68 million. That figure was $78 million in CARB's case. Intersect ENT Inc (NASDAQ:XENT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Peoples Utah Bancorp (NASDAQ:PUB) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Carbonite Inc (NASDAQ:CARB) is more popular among hedge funds. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 37.4% in 2019 through the end of November and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 9.9 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on CARB as the stock returned 48.5% during the first two months of Q4 and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were clearly right about piling into this stock relative to other stocks with similar market capitalizations.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
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