Is Criteo SA (ADR) (CRTO) A Good Stock To Buy?

A whopping number of 13F filings filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been processed by Insider Monkey so that individual investors can look at the overall hedge fund sentiment towards the stocks included in their watchlists. These freshly-submitted public filings disclose money managers’ equity positions as of the end of the three-month period that ended September 30, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment on Criteo SA (ADR) (NASDAQ:CRTO).

Criteo SA (ADR) (NASDAQ:CRTO) shares didn’t see a lot of action during the third quarter. Overall, hedge fund sentiment was unchanged. There were 13 funds in our database holding shares of CRTO at the end of September. At the end of this article we will also compare CRTO to other stocks including Sothebys (NYSE:BID), Dril-Quip, Inc. (NYSE:DRQ), and Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. (NASDAQ:MLNX) to get a better sense of its popularity.

Follow Criteo S.a.

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

market, stock, money, index, graph, credit, globe, advisor, economics, ticker, business, income, arrow, success, diagram, wealth, data, analysis, report, monitoring,

Horoscope/Shutterstock.com

Keeping this in mind, we’re going to take a look at the fresh action regarding Criteo SA (ADR) (NASDAQ:CRTO).

How have hedgies been trading Criteo SA (ADR) (NASDAQ:CRTO)?

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 13 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, unchanged from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in CRTO over the last five quarters. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

HedgeFundSentimentChart (1)

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Citadel Investment Group, led by Ken Griffin, holds the biggest position in Criteo SA (ADR) (NASDAQ:CRTO). Citadel Investment Group has a $45 million position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1% of its 13F portfolio. On Citadel Investment Group’s heels is York Capital Management, led by James Dinan, which holds a $30.2 million position; 1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other members of the smart money with similar optimism encompass Brian Ashford-Russell and Tim Woolley’s Polar Capital, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, and Millennium Management, one of the 10 largest hedge funds in the world. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.

Seeing as Criteo SA (ADR) (NASDAQ:CRTO) has faced bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s safe to say that there is a sect of hedgies that slashed their positions entirely in the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Eric Mindich’s Eton Park Capital cut the largest stake of all the hedgies studied by Insider Monkey, worth about $48.5 million in stock. Principal Global Investors’ fund, Columbus Circle Investors, also sold off its stock, about $29.3 million worth.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Criteo SA (ADR) (NASDAQ:CRTO). We will take a look at Sothebys (NYSE:BID), Dril-Quip, Inc. (NYSE:DRQ), Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. (NASDAQ:MLNX), and Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC (NYSE:OZM). This group of stocks’ market valuations match CRTO’s market valuation.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
BID 20 559010 4
DRQ 24 145709 3
MLNX 25 188356 0
OZM 17 186191 1

As you can see these stocks had an average of 22 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $270 million. That figure was $133 million in CRTO’s case. Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. (NASDAQ:MLNX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC (NYSE:OZM) is the least popular one with 17 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Criteo SA (ADR) (NASDAQ:CRTO) is even less popular than Och-Ziff Capital Management Group. Considering that hedge funds aren’t fond of this stock in relation to other companies analyzed in this article, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and understand why the smart money isn’t behind this stock. This isn’t necessarily bad news. Although it is possible that hedge funds may think the stock is overpriced and view the stock as a short candidate, they may not be very familiar with the bullish thesis. In either case more research is warranted.

Suggested Articles:
Best Karaoke Songs For People Who Can’t Sing
Smartphones With Best Antenna Reception
Easiest Countries To Get Dual Citizenship

Disclosure: none