We can judge whether HyreCar Inc. (NASDAQ:HYRE) is a good investment right now by following the lead of some of the best investors in the world and piggybacking their ideas. There’s no better way to get these firms’ immense resources and analytical capabilities working for us than to follow their lead into their best ideas. While not all of these picks will be winners, our research shows that these picks historically outperformed the market when we factor in known risk factors.
Is HyreCar Inc. (NASDAQ:HYRE) the right pick for your portfolio? Money managers are turning bullish. The number of long hedge fund bets went up by 4 recently. Our calculations also showed that HYRE isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video below for Q2 rankings). HYRE was in 7 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 3 hedge funds in our database with HYRE 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.
Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies
We leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example Discover is offering this insane cashback card, so we look into shorting the stock. 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 even check out this option genius’ weekly trade ideas. This December, we recommended Adams Energy as a one-way bet based on an under-the-radar fund manager’s investor letter and the stock already gained 20 percent. With all of this in mind we’re going to take a look at the key hedge fund action encompassing HyreCar Inc. (NASDAQ:HYRE).
How are hedge funds trading HyreCar Inc. (NASDAQ:HYRE)?
At Q3’s end, a total of 7 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 133% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards HYRE over the last 17 quarters. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
More specifically, Portolan Capital Management was the largest shareholder of HyreCar Inc. (NASDAQ:HYRE), with a stake worth $2.5 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Portolan Capital Management was Lynrock Lake, which amassed a stake valued at $1.9 million. Corsair Capital Management, G2 Investment Partners Management, and Emancipation Capital 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 Emancipation Capital allocated the biggest weight to HyreCar Inc. (NASDAQ:HYRE), around 0.89% of its 13F portfolio. Portolan Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.28 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to HYRE.
With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, some big names were breaking ground themselves. Lynrock Lake, managed by Cynthia Paul, established the most valuable position in HyreCar Inc. (NASDAQ:HYRE). Lynrock Lake had $1.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Jay Petschek and Steven Major’s Corsair Capital Management also made a $0.4 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new HYRE positions are Charles Frumberg’s Emancipation Capital and Renaissance Technologies.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to HyreCar Inc. (NASDAQ:HYRE). We will take a look at Issuer Direct Corporation (NYSEAMERICAN:ISDR), Kingold Jewelry Inc., (NASDAQ:KGJI), Tremont Mortgage Trust (NASDAQ:TRMT), and Ekso Bionics Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:EKSO). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble HYRE’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| ISDR | 1 | 1219 | -1 |
| KGJI | 1 | 7 | 0 |
| TRMT | 1 | 210 | -1 |
| EKSO | 4 | 11058 | 2 |
| Average | 1.75 | 3124 | 0 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 1.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $3 million. That figure was $5 million in HYRE’s case. Ekso Bionics Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:EKSO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Issuer Direct Corporation (NYSEAMERICAN:ISDR) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks HyreCar Inc. (NASDAQ:HYRE) 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 HYRE wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on HYRE were disappointed as the stock returned 4.8% 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.