Lookback: RF Capital’s 2019 GrafTech International (EAF) Thesis

If you are looking for the best ideas for your portfolio you may want to consider some of RF Capital’s top stock picks. RF Capital, an investment management firm, is bullish on GrafTech International Ltd (NYSE:EAF) stock. In its Q3 2019 investor letter – you can download a copy here – the firm discussed its investment thesis on GrafTech International Ltd (NYSE:EAF) stock. GrafTech International Ltd (NYSE:EAF) is a producer of specialized graphite electrodes.

In October 2019, RF Capital had released its Q3 2019 investor letter. The investment firm said that GrafTech International Ltd (NYSE:EAF) was one of the top 5 holdings in Q3 2019. The stock has posted a return of -44.2% in the trailing one year period, underperforming the S&P 500 Index which returned 15.1% in the same period. This suggests that the investment firm was wrong in its decision.

RF Capital fund posted a return of -6.98% in the third quarter of 2019, underperforming the S&P 500 Index which returned 1.87% in the same quarter. Let’s take a look at comments made by RF Capital about GrafTech International Ltd (NYSE:EAF) in the Q3 2019 investor letter.

“Graftech International (EAF) – Graftech is our newest purchase. We bought shares this month at an average price of $11.14 per share. EAF is currently 10% of the portfolio. We will elaborate more on EAF in our year-end letter.”

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In August 2020, we published an article revealing that RF Capital completely exited its position in GrafTech International Ltd (NYSE:EAF) stock in the second quarter of 2020. The investment firm sold purely based on technicals, not fundamentals.

In Q2 2020, the number of bullish hedge fund positions on GrafTech International Ltd (NYSE:EAF) stock increased by about 4% from the previous quarter (see the chart here), so a number of other hedge fund managers believe in GrafTech’s growth potential. Our calculations showed that GrafTech International Ltd (NYSE:EAF) isn’t ranked among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.

The top 10 stocks among hedge funds returned 216% since the end of 2014 and outperformed the S&P 500 Index ETFs by more than 121 percentage points. We know it sounds unbelievable. You have been dismissing our articles about top hedge fund stocks mostly because you were fed biased information by other media outlets about hedge funds’ poor performance. You could have doubled the size of your nest egg by investing in the top hedge fund stocks instead of dumb S&P 500 ETFs. Below you can watch our video about the top 5 hedge fund stocks right now. All of these stocks had positive returns in 2020.

Video: Top 5 Stocks Among Hedge Funds

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