Should You Buy Global Eagle Entertainment Inc (ENT)?

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 Global Eagle Entertainment Inc (NASDAQ:ENT).

Is Global Eagle Entertainment Inc (NASDAQ:ENT) ready to rally soon? Money managers are categorically becoming less confident. The number of bullish hedge fund bets that are revealed through the 13F filings were cut by 2 in recent months. ENT was in 11 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 13 hedge funds in our database with ENT positions at the end of the previous quarter. The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as Costamare Inc (NYSE:CMRE), The Marcus Corporation (NYSE:MCS), and National Bank Holdings Corp (NYSE:NBHC) to gather more data points.

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We care about hedge fund sentiment because historically hedge funds’ stock picks delivered strong risk adjusted returns. There are certain segments of the market where hedge funds’ stock picks performed much better than its benchmarks. For instance, the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks among the best performing hedge funds returned 18% over the last 12 months outpacing S&P 500 Index by more than 10 percentage points. We developed this strategy 2.5 years ago and started sharing its picks in our quarterly newsletter. It bested the S&P 500 Index ETFs by delivering a solid 39% vs. 22% gain for its benchmarks.

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How are hedge funds trading Global Eagle Entertainment Inc (NASDAQ:ENT)?

At Q3’s end, a total of 11 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, down by 15% from the previous quarter. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in ENT over the last 5 quarters. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

ent

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Paul Reeder and Edward Shapiro’s PAR Capital Management has the number one position in Global Eagle Entertainment Inc (NASDAQ:ENT), worth close to $240.8 million, corresponding to 3.5% of its total 13F portfolio. On PAR Capital Management’s heels is David Abrams of Abrams Capital Management, with a $41.6 million position; 2.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining professional money managers that are bullish comprise John C. Walker’s Stonerise Capital Management, Leon Cooperman’s Omega Advisors and Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies, one of the largest hedge funds in the world. 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.

Now that we’ve mentioned the most bullish investors, let’s also take a look at some funds that dropped their entire stakes in the stock during the third quarter. Intriguingly, George Hall’s Clinton Group dropped the largest position of all the hedgies monitored by Insider Monkey, valued at an estimated $0.2 million in stock. Ken Griffin’s fund, Citadel Investment Group, also said goodbye to its call options, about $0.2 million worth.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Global Eagle Entertainment Inc (NASDAQ:ENT) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Costamare Inc (NYSE:CMRE), The Marcus Corporation (NYSE:MCS), National Bank Holdings Corp (NYSE:NBHC), and Customers Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:CUBI). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble ENT’s market cap.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
CMRE 11 22129 4
MCS 9 41257 1
NBHC 10 62236 0
CUBI 8 16033 -1

As you can see these stocks had an average of 10 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $35 million. That figure was $309 million in ENT’s case. Costamare Inc (NYSE:CMRE) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Customers Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:CUBI) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Global Eagle Entertainment Inc (NASDAQ:ENT) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard CMRE might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

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Disclosure: None