Legendary investors such as Leon Cooperman and Seth Klarman earn enormous amounts of money for themselves and their investors by doing in-depth research on small-cap stocks that big brokerage houses don’t publish. Small cap stocks -especially when they are screened well- can generate substantial outperformance versus a boring index fund. That’s why we analyze the activity of those elite funds in these small-cap stocks. In the following paragraphs, we analyze Qunar Cayman Islands Ltd (NASDAQ:QUNR) from the perspective of those elite funds.
Qunar Cayman Islands Ltd (NASDAQ:QUNR) has experienced a decrease in support from the world’s most elite money managers recently. At the end of this article we will also compare QUNR to other stocks, including Berry Plastics Group Inc (NYSE:BERY), Autohome Inc (ADR) (NYSE:ATHM), and Seaboard Corporation (NYSEAMEX:SEB) to get a better sense of its popularity.
In the 21st century investor’s toolkit there are several gauges investors have at their disposal to value publicly traded companies. A duo of the most useful gauges are hedge fund and insider trading activity. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best money managers can outpace their index-focused peers by a significant amount (see the details here).
Keeping this in mind, we’re going to go over the new action encompassing Qunar Cayman Islands Ltd (NASDAQ:QUNR).
What have hedge funds been doing with Qunar Cayman Islands Ltd (NASDAQ:QUNR)?
At Q3’s end, a total of 24 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a decrease of 17% from the second quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).
Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Lei Zhang’s Hillhouse Capital Management has the biggest position in Qunar Cayman Islands Ltd (NASDAQ:QUNR), worth close to $202.9 million, comprising 4.1% of its total 13F portfolio. On Hillhouse Capital Management’s heels is Andreas Halvorsen of Viking Global, with a $143.8 million position; the fund has 0.6% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other professional money managers that are bullish include Daniel S. Och’s OZ Management, George Soros’s Soros Fund Management and Paul Reeder and Edward Shapiro’s PAR Capital Management.
Seeing as Qunar Cayman Islands Ltd (NASDAQ:QUNR) has witnessed falling interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s safe to say that there exists a select few hedge funds who sold off their entire stakes heading into Q4. Interestingly, Robert Karr’s Joho Capital dumped the largest position of the “upper crust” of funds watched by Insider Monkey, comprising close to $53.7 million in stock. Daniel Benton’s fund, Andor Capital Management, also dropped its stock, about $34.3 million worth of shares. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 5 funds heading into Q4.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Qunar Cayman Islands Ltd (NASDAQ:QUNR) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Berry Plastics Group Inc (NYSE:BERY), Autohome Inc (ADR) (NYSE:ATHM), Seaboard Corporation (NYSEAMEX:SEB), and Umpqua Holdings Corp (NASDAQ:UMPQ). This group of stocks’ market values resemble QUNR’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| BERY | 47 | 1098594 | 0 |
| ATHM | 12 | 419526 | -12 |
| SEB | 7 | 42716 | 1 |
| UMPQ | 19 | 286441 | 1 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 21 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $462 million. That figure was $956 million in QUNR’s case. Berry Plastics Group Inc (NYSE:BERY) is leading the pack, while Seaboard Corporation (NYSEAMEX:SEB) is the least popular stock with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Qunar Cayman Islands Ltd (NASDAQ:QUNR) is not the most popular stock in this group, but hedge fund interest is still above average. Although this is a slightly positive signal, we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard BERY might be a better candidate to consider a long position.
