Hedge Funds Are Dumping Ideanomics, Inc. (IDEX)

Insider Monkey has processed numerous 13F filings of hedge funds and successful value investors to create an extensive database of hedge fund holdings. The 13F filings show the hedge funds’ and successful investors’ positions as of the end of the third quarter. You can find articles about an individual hedge fund’s trades on numerous financial news websites. However, in this article we will take a look at their collective moves over the last 5 years and analyze what the smart money thinks of Ideanomics, Inc. (NASDAQ:IDEX) based on that data.

Is Ideanomics, Inc. (NASDAQ:IDEX) a splendid investment today? Prominent investors were in a bearish mood. The number of long hedge fund positions decreased by 5 in recent months. Ideanomics, Inc. (NASDAQ:IDEX) was in 3 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistics is 8. Our calculations also showed that IDEX isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

In today’s marketplace there are several tools stock market investors can use to value publicly traded companies. Two of the most useful tools are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best money managers can outperform the broader indices by a solid margin (see the details here).

Donald Sussman Paloma Partners

Donald Sussman of Paloma Partners

At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 10 most profitable companies in the world to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our website.With all of this in mind we’re going to take a look at the recent hedge fund action surrounding Ideanomics, Inc. (NASDAQ:IDEX).

What have hedge funds been doing with Ideanomics, Inc. (NASDAQ:IDEX)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 3 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -63% from the second quarter of 2020. By comparison, 1 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in IDEX a year ago. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were adding to their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

More specifically, Citadel Investment Group was the largest shareholder of Ideanomics, Inc. (NASDAQ:IDEX), with a stake worth $0.1 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Citadel Investment Group was Paloma Partners, which amassed a stake valued at $0.1 million. D E Shaw was 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 Paloma Partners allocated the biggest weight to Ideanomics, Inc. (NASDAQ:IDEX), around 0.0024% of its 13F portfolio. Millennium Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 0.0001 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to IDEX.

Since Ideanomics, Inc. (NASDAQ:IDEX) has experienced bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s safe to say that there is a sect of fund managers that elected to cut their entire stakes in the third quarter. Interestingly, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group cut the largest stake of all the hedgies tracked by Insider Monkey, valued at about $0.3 million in stock. Michael Gelband’s fund, ExodusPoint Capital, also sold off its stock, about $0.2 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 5 funds in the third quarter.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Ideanomics, Inc. (NASDAQ:IDEX) but similarly valued. These stocks are Southern Missouri Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:SMBC), CapStar Financial Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSTR), Greenhill & Co., Inc. (NYSE:GHL), Pure Cycle Corporation (NASDAQ:PCYO), Hersha Hospitality Trust (NYSE:HT), LogicBio Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:LOGC), and Fathom Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:FTHM). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to IDEX’s market cap.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
SMBC 4 7159 1
CSTR 6 10020 -1
GHL 9 15174 -4
PCYO 11 56424 -3
HT 12 13849 0
LOGC 4 70426 0
FTHM 3 5099 3
Average 7 25450 -0.6

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $25 million. That figure was $0 million in IDEX’s case. Hersha Hospitality Trust (NYSE:HT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Fathom Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:FTHM) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Ideanomics, Inc. (NASDAQ:IDEX) is even less popular than FTHM. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for IDEX is 11.3. 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. Hedge funds clearly dropped the ball on IDEX as the stock delivered strong returns, though hedge funds’ consensus picks still generated respectable returns. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.3% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10 percentage points. These stocks gained 28.1% in 2020 through November 23rd and still beat the market by 15.4 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on IDEX as the stock returned 187.9% since Q3 (through November 23rd) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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