Is Salem Media Group Inc (SALM) A Good Stock To Buy?

It seems that the masses and most of the financial media hate hedge funds and what they do, but why is this hatred of hedge funds so prominent? At the end of the day, these asset management firms do not gamble the hard-earned money of the people who are on the edge of poverty. Truth be told, most hedge fund managers and other smaller players within this industry are very smart and skilled investors. Of course, they may also make wrong bets in some instances, but no one knows what the future holds and how market participants will react to the bountiful news that floods in each day. The S&P 500 Index gained 7.6% in the 12 month-period that ended November 21, while less than 49% of its stocks beat the benchmark. In contrast, the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks among the top hedge fund investors tracked by the Insider Monkey team returned 18% over the same period, which provides evidence that these money managers do have great stock picking abilities. That’s why we believe it isn’t a waste of time to check out hedge fund sentiment before you invest in a stock like Salem Media Group Inc (NASDAQ:SALM).

Hedge fund interest in Salem Media Group Inc (NASDAQ:SALM) shares was flat at the end of last quarter. This is usually a negative indicator. At the end of this article we will also compare SALM to other stocks including Silvercrest Asset Management Group Inc (NASDAQ:SAMG), Ruby Tuesday, Inc. (NYSE:RT), and Simulations Plus, Inc. (NASDAQ:SLP) to get a better sense of its popularity.

Follow Salem Media Group Inc. (NASDAQ:SALM)

news, camera, media, public, broadcasting, journalism, presentation, politics, video, people, equipment, operator, press, conference, interview, cameraman, live, speech,

wellphoto/Shutterstock.com

What have hedge funds been doing with Salem Media Group Inc (NASDAQ:SALM)?

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 6 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 0% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 7 hedge funds with a bullish position in SALM at the beginning of this year. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

salm

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, GAMCO Investors, led by Mario Gabelli, holds the largest position in Salem Media Group Inc (NASDAQ:SALM). GAMCO Investors has a $6.3 million position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Renaissance Technologies, one of the largest hedge funds in the world, holding a $1.5 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other members of the smart money that hold long positions consist of Peter Algert and Kevin Coldiron’s Algert Coldiron Investors, Paul J. Isaac’s Arbiter Partners Capital Management and Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management. We should note that Arbiter Partners Capital Management is 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.

Earlier we told you that the aggregate hedge fund interest in the stock was unchanged and we view this as a negative development. Even though there weren’t any hedge funds dumping their holdings during the third quarter, there weren’t any hedge funds initiating brand new positions. This indicates that hedge funds, at the very best, perceive this stock as dead money and they haven’t identified any viable catalysts that can attract investor attention.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Salem Media Group Inc (NASDAQ:SALM). We will take a look at Silvercrest Asset Management Group Inc (NASDAQ:SAMG), Ruby Tuesday, Inc. (NYSE:RT), Simulations Plus, Inc. (NASDAQ:SLP), and SandRidge Permian Trust (NYSE:PER). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to SALM’s market cap.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
SAMG 3 10061 -1
RT 15 22773 -1
SLP 5 8406 0
PER 1 223 -3

As you can see these stocks had an average of 6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $10 million. That figure was $9 million in SALM’s case. Ruby Tuesday, Inc. (NYSE:RT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand SandRidge Permian Trust (NYSE:PER) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Salem Media Group Inc (NASDAQ:SALM) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard RT might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.