Hedge Funds Are Crazy About CarParts.com, Inc. (PRTS)

The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. Insider Monkey finished processing 867 13F filings submitted by hedge funds and prominent investors. These filings show these funds’ portfolio positions as of September 30th, 2021. What do these smart investors think about CarParts.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTS)?

CarParts.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTS) shares haven’t seen a lot of action during the second quarter. Overall, hedge fund sentiment was unchanged. The stock was in 22 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. Our calculations also showed that PRTS isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings). At the end of this article we will also compare PRTS to other stocks including Mitek Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:MITK), OraSure Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:OSUR), and QCR Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCRH) to get a better sense of its popularity.

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium prices have more than doubled over the past year, so we go through lists like the 10 best EV stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. Now let’s take a glance at the key hedge fund action regarding CarParts.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTS).

Brad Farber Atika Capital

Brad Farber of Atika Capital

Do Hedge Funds Think PRTS Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At third quarter’s end, a total of 22 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 0% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 22 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in PRTS a year ago. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Among these funds, Park West Asset Management held the most valuable stake in CarParts.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTS), which was worth $49.4 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was G2 Investment Partners Management which amassed $28.9 million worth of shares. Shannon River Fund Management, Atika Capital, and Stamina Capital Management were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position G2 Investment Partners Management allocated the biggest weight to CarParts.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTS), around 5.02% of its 13F portfolio. Stamina Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 3.03 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to PRTS.

Judging by the fact that CarParts.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTS) has faced bearish sentiment from the smart money, it’s safe to say that there lies a certain “tier” of hedge funds that slashed their positions entirely by the end of the third quarter. Intriguingly, Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management dropped the largest position of all the hedgies followed by Insider Monkey, totaling about $0.9 million in call options. Adam Usdan’s fund, Trellus Management Company, also said goodbye to its call options, about $0.6 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to CarParts.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTS). We will take a look at Mitek Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:MITK), OraSure Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:OSUR), QCR Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCRH), Design Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:DSGN), Orla Mining Ltd. (NYSE:ORLA), Golden Nugget Online Gaming, Inc. (NASDAQ:GNOG), and SLR Investment Corp. (NASDAQ:SLRC). All of these stocks’ market caps are similar to PRTS’s market cap.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
MITK 18 99753 1
OSUR 14 73669 1
QCRH 14 79287 -1
DSGN 13 279180 0
ORLA 3 709 0
GNOG 18 214479 11
SLRC 7 24482 -4
Average 12.4 110223 1.1

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 12.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $110 million. That figure was $184 million in PRTS’s case. Mitek Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:MITK) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Orla Mining Ltd. (NYSE:ORLA) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks CarParts.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTS) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for PRTS is 85. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 29.6% in 2021 and still beat the market by 3.6 percentage points. Unfortunately PRTS wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on PRTS were disappointed as the stock returned -28.3% since the end of the third quarter (through 12/31) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

Follow Carparts.com Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTS)

Suggested Articles:

Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.