Is INSW A Good Stock To Buy Now?

The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. We have processed the filings of the more than 817 world-class investment firms that we track and now have access to the collective wisdom contained in these filings, which are based on their September 30 holdings, data that is available nowhere else. Should you consider International Seaways, Inc. (NYSE:INSW) for your portfolio? We’ll look to this invaluable collective wisdom for the answer.

Is INSW a good stock to buy now? International Seaways, Inc. (NYSE:INSW) investors should pay attention to a decrease in support from the world’s most elite money managers of late. International Seaways, Inc. (NYSE:INSW) was in 15 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2020. The all time high for this statistic is 27. There were 19 hedge funds in our database with INSW holdings at the end of June. Our calculations also showed that INSW isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

In the 21st century investor’s toolkit there are tons of gauges market participants can use to assess their stock investments. Some of the less utilized gauges are hedge fund and insider trading signals. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top fund managers can outclass their index-focused peers by a significant margin (see the details here).

At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 15 best blue chip stocks to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our website. Now we’re going to analyze the fresh hedge fund action surrounding International Seaways, Inc. (NYSE:INSW).

Do Hedge Funds Think INSW Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 15 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -21% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards INSW over the last 21 quarters. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

More specifically, Cyrus Capital Partners was the largest shareholder of International Seaways, Inc. (NYSE:INSW), with a stake worth $58.5 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Cyrus Capital Partners was Hosking Partners, which amassed a stake valued at $6.1 million. Arrowstreet Capital, Mangrove Partners, and Citadel Investment Group 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 Cyrus Capital Partners allocated the biggest weight to International Seaways, Inc. (NYSE:INSW), around 13.66% of its 13F portfolio. Claar Advisors is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 0.29 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to INSW.

Due to the fact that International Seaways, Inc. (NYSE:INSW) has experienced a decline in interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s easy to see that there exists a select few hedge funds who were dropping their positions entirely by the end of the third quarter. Intriguingly, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates sold off the biggest investment of all the hedgies monitored by Insider Monkey, totaling an estimated $1 million in stock. Peter Algert and Kevin Coldiron’s fund, Algert Coldiron Investors, also dumped its stock, about $0.6 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 4 funds by the end of the third quarter.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to International Seaways, Inc. (NYSE:INSW). We will take a look at China Online Education Group (NYSE:COE), CBTX, Inc. (NASDAQ:CBTX), Amryt Pharma plc (NASDAQ:AMYT), REX American Resources Corp (NYSE:REX), Laird Superfood, Inc. (NYSE:LSF), Diamond Hill Investment Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:DHIL), and BeyondSpring, Inc. (NASDAQ:BYSI). This group of stocks’ market values resemble INSW’s market value.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 7.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $25 million. That figure was $76 million in INSW’s case. Laird Superfood, Inc. (NYSE:LSF) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand China Online Education Group (NYSE:COE) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks International Seaways, Inc. (NYSE:INSW) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for INSW is 67.7. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.3% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10 percentage points. These stocks returned 30.7% in 2020 through December 14th but still managed to beat the market by 15.8 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on INSW as the stock returned 20.1% since the end of September (through 12/14) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were clearly right about piling into this stock relative to other stocks with similar market capitalizations.

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