Hedge Funds Are Selling Mantech International Corp (MANT)

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 September 30, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment on Mantech International Corp (NASDAQ:MANT) .

Mantech International Corp (NASDAQ:MANT) has seen a decrease in enthusiasm from smart money lately. MANT was in 11 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 12 hedge funds in our database with MANT holdings at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare MANT to other stocks including Silver Standard Resources Inc. (USA) (NASDAQ:SSRI), DeVry Inc. (NYSE:DV), and Vonage Holdings Corp. (NYSE:VG) to get a better sense of its popularity.

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

With all of this in mind, we’re going to take a look at the recent action surrounding Mantech International Corp (NASDAQ:MANT).

How are hedge funds trading Mantech International Corp (NASDAQ:MANT)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 11 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -8% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 16 hedge funds with a bullish position in MANT at the beginning of this year. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management has the biggest position in Mantech International Corp (NASDAQ:MANT), worth close to $5.4 million, comprising less than 0.1% of its total 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is Adage Capital Management, led by Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson, which holds a $1.4 million position; the fund has less than 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other professional money managers with similar optimism comprise Peter Algert and Kevin Coldiron’s Algert Coldiron Investors, Murray Stahl’s Horizon Asset Management and Brian Taylor’s Pine River Capital Management. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.

Since Mantech International Corp (NASDAQ:MANT) has experienced declining sentiment from hedge fund managers, logic holds that there exists a select few hedgies that slashed their full holdings heading into Q4. Intriguingly, Neil Chriss’s Hutchin Hill Capital said goodbye to the biggest stake of the “upper crust” of funds monitored by Insider Monkey, valued at about $0.9 million in stock, and Mark Coe’s Coe Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $0.7 million worth of shares.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Mantech International Corp (NASDAQ:MANT) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Silver Standard Resources Inc. (USA) (NASDAQ:SSRI), DeVry Inc. (NYSE:DV), Vonage Holdings Corp. (NYSE:VG), and Cambrex Corporation (NYSE:CBM). This group of stocks’ market values match MANT’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 20.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $204 million. That figure was $12 million in MANT’s case. DeVry Inc. (NYSE:DV) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Silver Standard Resources Inc. (USA) (NASDAQ:SSRI) is the least popular one with only 12 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Mantech International Corp (NASDAQ:MANT) is even less popular than SSRI. Considering that hedge funds aren’t fond of this stock in relation to other companies analyzed in this article, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and understand why the smart money isn’t behind this stock. This isn’t necessarily bad news. Although it is possible that hedge funds may think the stock is overpriced and view the stock as a short candidate, they may not be very familiar with the bullish thesis. In either case more research is warranted.