Is Inuvo, Inc. (INUV) A Good Stock To Buy?

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 Inuvo, Inc. (NYSE:INUV) for your portfolio? We’ll look to this invaluable collective wisdom for the answer.

Hedge fund interest in Inuvo, Inc. (NYSE:INUV) shares was flat at the end of last quarter. This is usually a negative indicator. Our calculations also showed that INUV 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). The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as SOS Limited (NYSE:SOS), Profire Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:PFIE), and Quest Resource Holding Corp (NASDAQ:QRHC) to gather more data points.

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

At the moment there are a multitude of methods market participants have at their disposal to grade publicly traded companies. A pair of the most under-the-radar methods are hedge fund and insider trading moves. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outperform the market by a superb amount (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 10 most profitable companies in the world 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 take a look at the latest hedge fund action regarding Inuvo, Inc. (NYSE:INUV).

How have hedgies been trading Inuvo, Inc. (NYSE:INUV)?

At Q3’s end, a total of 3 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 0% from the previous quarter. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in INUV over the last 21 quarters. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

More specifically, Millennium Management was the largest shareholder of Inuvo, Inc. (NYSE:INUV), with a stake worth $0.1 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Millennium Management was Citadel Investment Group, which amassed a stake valued at $0 million. Renaissance Technologies was 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 Millennium Management allocated the biggest weight to Inuvo, Inc. (NYSE:INUV), around 0.0001% of its 13F portfolio. Renaissance Technologies is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 0 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to INUV.

Earlier we told you that the aggregate hedge fund interest in the stock was unchanged and we view this as a negative development. Even though there weren’t any hedge funds dumping their holdings during the third quarter, there weren’t any hedge funds initiating brand new positions. This indicates that hedge funds, at the very best, perceive this stock as dead money and they haven’t identified any viable catalysts that can attract investor attention.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Inuvo, Inc. (NYSE:INUV). These stocks are SOS Limited (NYSE:SOS), Profire Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:PFIE), Quest Resource Holding Corp (NASDAQ:QRHC), Comstock Mining, Inc. (NYSE:LODE), NetSol Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:NTWK), Mannatech, Inc. (NASDAQ:MTEX), and Oragenics Inc. (NYSE:OGEN). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble INUV’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 2.6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $2 million. That figure was $0 million in INUV’s case. Quest Resource Holding Corp (NASDAQ:QRHC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand SOS Limited (NYSE:SOS) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Inuvo, Inc. (NYSE:INUV) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for INUV is 60. 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. This is a slightly positive signal but 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 41.3% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10 percentage points. These stocks gained 28.1% in 2020 through November 23rd and beat the market again by 15.4 percentage points. Unfortunately INUV wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on INUV were disappointed as the stock returned -2.7% since the end of September (through 11/23) 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 many of these stocks already outperformed the market so far this year.

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