Here’s What Hedge Funds Think About Silvercorp Metals Inc. (SVM)

The 700+ hedge funds and famous money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the first quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of March 31. 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 Silvercorp Metals Inc. (NYSE:SVM).

Is Silvercorp Metals Inc. (NYSE:SVM) a buy right now? Prominent investors are becoming less hopeful. The number of long hedge fund positions dropped by 3 in recent months. Our calculations also showed that svm isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.

Today there are dozens of tools shareholders use to grade their stock investments. Two of the most underrated tools are hedge fund and insider trading moves. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top hedge fund managers can outpace the S&P 500 by a solid amount (see the details here).

Paul Marshall Marshall Wace

Paul Marshall of Marshall Wace

Let’s take a peek at the fresh hedge fund action encompassing Silvercorp Metals Inc. (NYSE:SVM).

What have hedge funds been doing with Silvercorp Metals Inc. (NYSE:SVM)?

At the end of the first quarter, a total of 9 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -25% from the fourth quarter of 2018. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards SVM over the last 15 quarters. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

No of Hedge Funds with SVM Positions

The largest stake in Silvercorp Metals Inc. (NYSE:SVM) was held by Renaissance Technologies, which reported holding $7.5 million worth of stock at the end of March. It was followed by Marshall Wace LLP with a $3.2 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Sprott Asset Management, Arrowstreet Capital, and Two Sigma Advisors.

Since Silvercorp Metals Inc. (NYSE:SVM) has faced a decline in interest from the smart money, we can see that there exists a select few hedge funds that elected to cut their entire stakes last quarter. At the top of the heap, Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management cut the biggest position of all the hedgies watched by Insider Monkey, worth about $0.3 million in stock. Peter Muller’s fund, PDT Partners, also cut its stock, about $0.1 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 3 funds last quarter.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Silvercorp Metals Inc. (NYSE:SVM). These stocks are United States Lime & Minerals, Inc. (NASDAQ:USLM), Financial Institutions, Inc. (NASDAQ:FISI), Tower International Inc (NYSE:TOWR), and Diplomat Pharmacy Inc (NYSE:DPLO). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to SVM’s market cap.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
USLM 4 31382 2
FISI 11 39671 1
TOWR 13 41821 -3
DPLO 14 85694 4
Average 10.5 49642 1

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 10.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $50 million. That figure was $18 million in SVM’s case. Diplomat Pharmacy Inc (NYSE:DPLO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand United States Lime & Minerals, Inc.(NASDAQ:USLM) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Silvercorp Metals Inc. (NYSE:SVM) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 6.2% in Q2 through June 19th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by nearly 3 percentage points. Unfortunately SVM wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); SVM investors were disappointed as the stock returned -5.3% during the same time period 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 13 of these stocks already outperformed the market so far in Q2.

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