Is YRC Worldwide Inc (YRCW) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds?

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YRC Worldwide Inc (NASDAQ:YRCW) was in 19 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2016. YRCW shareholders have witnessed a decrease in enthusiasm from smart money recently. There were 20 hedge funds in our database with YRCW positions at the end of the previous quarter. 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 Blue Hills Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:BHBK), GP Strategies Corporation (NYSE:GPX), and FairPoint Communications Inc (NASDAQ:FRP) to gather more data points.

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How are hedge funds trading YRC Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:YRCW)?

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 19 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a 5% dip from one quarter earlier, and the fourth straight quarter with a decline in the number of bullish hedge fund positions. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards YRCW over the last 5 quarters. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Marc Lasry of Avenue Capital holds the most valuable position in YRC Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:YRCW), valued at $59.1 million and comprising 12.5% of its 13F portfolio. On Avenue Capital’s heels is Mike Masters of Masters Capital Management, with a $24.6 million position. Remaining hedge funds and institutional investors that are bullish comprise Richard S. Meisenberg’s ACK Asset Management, Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies, and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management. 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 YRC Worldwide Inc (NASDAQ:YRCW) has experienced declining sentiment from hedge fund managers, we can see that there is a sect of money managers who sold off their entire stakes last quarter. Interestingly, Richard Mashaal’s RIMA Senvest Management cut the biggest stake of the 700 funds monitored by Insider Monkey, valued at close to $3.6 million in stock, and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $0.9 million worth of shares.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to YRC Worldwide Inc (NASDAQ:YRCW). These stocks are Blue Hills Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:BHBK), GP Strategies Corporation (NYSE:GPX), FairPoint Communications Inc (NASDAQ:FRP), and The Rubicon Project Inc (NYSE:RUBI). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to YRCW’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 17 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $101 million. That figure was $112 million in YRCW’s case. The Rubicon Project Inc (NYSE:RUBI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand GP Strategies Corporation (NYSE:GPX) is the least popular one with only 13 bullish hedge fund positions. YRC Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:YRCW) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard RUBI might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: None