The 700+ hedge funds and famous money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the third quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of September 30. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund portfolios. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards ACM Research, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACMR).
Is ACM Research, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACMR) a buy right now? The best stock pickers are buying. The number of long hedge fund bets rose by 3 in recent months. Our calculations also showed that ACMR isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video below for Q2 rankings). ACMR was in 10 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2019. There were 7 hedge funds in our database with ACMR positions at the end of the previous quarter.
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research has shown that hedge funds’ large-cap stock picks indeed failed to beat the market between 1999 and 2016. However, we were able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the Russell 2000 ETFs by 40 percentage points since May 2014 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that’ll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 27.8% through November 21, 2019. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
Paul Marshall of Marshall Wace
We leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example Europe is set to become the world’s largest cannabis market, so we check out this European marijuana stock pitch. One of the most bullish analysts in America just put his money where his mouth is. He says, “I’m investing more today than I did back in early 2009.” So we check out his pitch. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. We also rely on the best performing hedge funds‘ buy/sell signals. Let’s check out the latest hedge fund action encompassing ACM Research, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACMR).
How have hedgies been trading ACM Research, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACMR)?
At the end of the third quarter, a total of 10 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 43% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards ACMR over the last 17 quarters. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
Among these funds, Marshall Wace held the most valuable stake in ACM Research, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACMR), which was worth $2.9 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Millennium Management which amassed $2.5 million worth of shares. Arrowstreet Capital, Citadel Investment Group, and Renaissance Technologies 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 Granite Point Capital allocated the biggest weight to ACM Research, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACMR), around 0.07% of its 13F portfolio. Marshall Wace is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.02 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to ACMR.
As aggregate interest increased, some big names were breaking ground themselves. Marshall Wace, managed by Paul Marshall and Ian Wace, created the biggest position in ACM Research, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACMR). Marshall Wace had $2.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. David E. Shaw’s D E Shaw also made a $0.3 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new ACMR positions are John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors and Thomas Bailard’s Bailard Inc.
Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as ACM Research, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACMR) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Silver Spike Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ:SSPKU), Geron Corporation (NASDAQ:GERN), PDL Community Bancorp (NASDAQ:PDLB), and Premier Financial Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:PFBI). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble ACMR’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| SSPKU | 8 | 52323 | 8 |
| GERN | 1 | 106 | -1 |
| PDLB | 2 | 3226 | 0 |
| PFBI | 5 | 8069 | -1 |
| Average | 4 | 15931 | 1.5 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $16 million. That figure was $10 million in ACMR’s case. Silver Spike Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ:SSPKU) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Geron Corporation (NASDAQ:GERN) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks ACM Research, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACMR) is more popular among hedge funds. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 37.4% in 2019 through the end of November and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 9.9 percentage points. Unfortunately ACMR wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on ACMR were disappointed as the stock returned -0.4% during the first two months of the fourth quarter and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds as 70 percent of these stocks already outperformed the market in Q4.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
