Atmel Corporation (ATML): Are Hedge Funds Right About This Stock?

The market has been volatile as the Federal Reserve winds down its easy money policies. Small cap stocks have been hit hard as a result, as the Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) has underperformed the larger S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by more than 14 percentage points between June 25th and the end of October. SEC filings and hedge fund investor letters indicate that the smart money seems to be paring back their overall long exposure, and the funds’ movements is one of the reasons why the major indexes have retraced. In this article, we analyze what the smart money thinks of Atmel Corporation (NASDAQ:ATML) and find out how it is affected by hedge funds’ moves.

Is Atmel Corporation (NASDAQ:ATML) a superb stock to buy now? Money managers are becoming less confident. The number of bullish hedge fund bets retreated by 1 recently. ATML was in 35 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 36 hedge funds in our database with ATML holdings at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare ATML to other stocks including Sovran Self Storage Inc (NYSE:SSS), Qlik Technologies Inc (NASDAQ:QLIK), and Memorial Resource Development Corp (NASDAQ:MRD) to get a better sense of its popularity.

In the 21st century investor’s toolkit there are tons of signals shareholders put to use to assess publicly traded companies. Some of the most under-the-radar signals are hedge fund and insider trading moves. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best fund managers can trounce the market by a healthy amount (see the details here).

Keeping this in mind, we’re going to check out the new action surrounding Atmel Corporation (NASDAQ:ATML).

What have hedge funds been doing with Atmel Corporation (NASDAQ:ATML)?

At Q3’s end, a total of 35 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -3% from one quarter earlier. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, TIG Advisors, managed by Carl Tiedemann and Michael Tiedemann, holds the number one position in Atmel Corporation (NASDAQ:ATML). TIG Advisors has an $81.1 million position in the stock, comprising 3.7% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Arrowgrass Capital Partners, managed by Nick Niell, which holds an $38.6 million position; 0.7% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining members of the smart money that hold long positions include Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management, Robert Emil Zoellner’s Alpine Associates and Zac Hirzel’s Hirzel Capital Management.

Since Atmel Corporation (NASDAQ:ATML) has experienced bearish sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, logic holds that there were a few hedge funds that slashed their positions entirely in the third quarter. At the top of the heap, George Soros’ Soros Fund Management dropped the largest investment of the 700 funds followed by Insider Monkey, worth close to $50.9 million in stock. Panayotis Takis Sparaggis’s fund, Alkeon Capital Management, also dumped its stock, about $50.5 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 1 funds in the third quarter.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Atmel Corporation (NASDAQ:ATML) but similarly valued. These stocks are Sovran Self Storage Inc (NYSE:SSS), Qlik Technologies Inc (NASDAQ:QLIK), Memorial Resource Development Corp (NASDAQ:MRD), and Graham Holdings Co (NYSE:GHC). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to ATML’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 28.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $664 million. That figure was $266 million in ATML’s case. Qlik Technologies Inc (NASDAQ:QLIK) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Sovran Self Storage Inc (NYSE:SSS) is the least popular one with only 19 bullish hedge fund positions. Atmel Corporation (NASDAQ:ATML) 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 QLIK might be a better candidate to consider a long position.