Is Manitex International (MNTX) A Good Stock To Buy Now?

The financial regulations require hedge funds and wealthy investors that exceeded the $100 million equity holdings threshold to file a report that shows their positions at the end of every quarter. Even though it isn’t the intention, these filings to a certain extent level the playing field for ordinary investors. The latest round of 13F filings disclosed the funds’ positions on September 30th, about a month before the elections. We at Insider Monkey have made an extensive database of more than 817 of those established hedge funds and famous value investors’ filings. In this article, we analyze how these elite funds and prominent investors traded Manitex International, Inc. (NASDAQ:MNTX) based on those filings.

Is Manitex International (MNTX) a good stock to buy now? MNTX shares haven’t seen a lot of action during the second quarter. Overall, hedge fund sentiment was unchanged. The stock was in 6 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. Our calculations also showed that MNTX 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 American Virtual Cloud Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVCT), Mallinckrodt Public Limited Company (NYSE:MNK), and First United Corp (NASDAQ:FUNC) to gather more data points.

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

So, why do we pay attention to hedge fund sentiment before making any investment decisions? Our research has shown that hedge funds’ small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 66 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that underperformed the market by 10 percentage points annually between 2006 and 2017. Interestingly the margin of underperformance of these stocks has been increasing in recent years. Investors who are long the market and short these stocks would have returned more than 27% annually between 2015 and 2017. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 in our quarterly newsletter. Even if you aren’t comfortable with shorting stocks, you should at least avoid initiating long positions in stocks that are in our short portfolio.

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 view the latest hedge fund action surrounding Manitex International, Inc. (NASDAQ:MNTX).

What does smart money think about Manitex International, Inc. (NASDAQ:MNTX)?

At third quarter’s end, a total of 6 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 0% from the second quarter of 2020. On the other hand, there were a total of 8 hedge funds with a bullish position in MNTX a year ago. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were adding to their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

The largest stake in Manitex International, Inc. (NASDAQ:MNTX) was held by Rutabaga Capital Management, which reported holding $3.6 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Royce & Associates with a $3.2 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Cannell Capital, Renaissance Technologies, and LMR Partners. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Rutabaga Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Manitex International, Inc. (NASDAQ:MNTX), around 2.03% of its 13F portfolio. Cannell Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.48 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to MNTX.

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 also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Manitex International, Inc. (NASDAQ:MNTX). We will take a look at American Virtual Cloud Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVCT), Mallinckrodt Public Limited Company (NYSE:MNK), First United Corp (NASDAQ:FUNC), Boxlight Corporation (NASDAQ:BOXL), Ur-Energy Inc. (NYSE:URG), Beam Global (NASDAQ:BEEM), and The Alkaline Water Company Inc. (NASDAQ:WTER). This group of stocks’ market caps match MNTX’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 4.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $3 million. That figure was $8 million in MNTX’s case. Mallinckrodt Public Limited Company (NYSE:MNK) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Boxlight Corporation (NASDAQ:BOXL) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Manitex International, Inc. (NASDAQ:MNTX) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for MNTX is 45.7. 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. 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 30.7% in 2020 through November 27th and beat the market again by 16.1 percentage points. Unfortunately MNTX wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on MNTX were disappointed as the stock returned 7.4% since the end of September (through 11/27) 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.