Hedge Funds Are Selling Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (NM)

With the third-quarter round of 13F filings behind us it is time to take a look at the stocks in which some of the best money managers in the world preferred to invest or sell heading into the fourth quarter. One of these stocks was Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (NYSE:NM).

Is Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (NYSE:NM) the right investment to pursue these days? Money managers are getting less optimistic. The number of long hedge fund bets were cut by 4 in recent months. NM was in 9 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 13 hedge funds in our database with NM holdings 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 Panhandle Oil and Gas Inc. (NYSE:PHX), ChemoCentryx Inc (NASDAQ:CCXI), and Atlas Resource Partners, L.P. (NYSE:ARP) to gather more data points.

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Now, we’re going to view the recent action surrounding Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (NYSE:NM).

What does the smart money think about Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (NYSE:NM)?

At Q3’s end, a total of 9 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -31% from one quarter earlier. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Gilchrist Berg’s Water Street Capital has the number one position in Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (NYSE:NM), worth close to $5.7 million, corresponding to 0.2% of its total 13F portfolio. On Water Street Capital’s heels is Chuck Royce of Royce & Associates, with an $5.2 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining peers that hold long positions include Bernard Selz’s Selz Capital, Emanuel J. Friedman’s EJF Capital and Andy Redleaf’s Whitebox Advisors.

Since Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (NYSE:NM) has faced falling interest from hedge fund managers, we can see that there were a few funds that elected to cut their full holdings in the third quarter. Interestingly, Brian Taylor’s Pine River Capital Management dropped the largest position of the “upper crust” of funds monitored by Insider Monkey, totaling about $1.7 million in stock, and Noam Gottesman’s GLG Partners was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $0.2 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 4 funds in the third quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (NYSE:NM). These stocks are Panhandle Oil and Gas Inc. (NYSE:PHX), ChemoCentryx Inc (NASDAQ:CCXI), Atlas Resource Partners, L.P. (NYSE:ARP), and Franklin Covey Co. (NYSE:FC). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to NM’s market cap.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
PHX 8 24430 2
CCXI 10 69580 -1
ARP 5 16011 0
FC 8 24400 0

As you can see these stocks had an average of 8 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $34 million. That figure was $16 million in NM’s case. ChemoCentryx Inc (NASDAQ:CCXI) is the most popular stock in this table, while the least popular one is Atlas Resource Partners, L.P. (NYSE:ARP). In comparison, with 9 bullish hedge fund positions, Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (NYSE:NM) is not the most popular stock in this group, but still it has attracted attention from investors above average. Although, this may imply it is a good stock to buy, we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard, CCXI might be a better candidate to consider a long position.