Marten Transport, Ltd (MRTN): Hedge Fund Sentiment Unchanged

Because Marten Transport, Ltd (NASDAQ:MRTN) has experienced falling interest from the smart money, logic holds that there was a specific group of money managers that slashed their entire stakes heading into Q4. At the top of the heap, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management dumped the largest position of the “upper crust” of funds monitored by Insider Monkey, worth an estimated $8.5 million in stock. Paul Tudor Jones’ fund, Tudor Investment Corp, also sold off its entire holding, about $0.6 million worth of MRTN shares. These transactions are important to note, as total hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Marten Transport, Ltd (NASDAQ:MRTN). These stocks are Del Taco Restaurants Inc (NASDAQ:TACO), Agree Realty Corporation (NYSE:ADC), LGI Homes Inc (NASDAQ:LGIH), and WMIH Corp (NASDAQ:WMIH). This group of stocks’ market valuations resemble MRTN’s market valuation.

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 $102 million. That figure was a meager $29 million in MRTN’s case. WMIH Corp (NASDAQ:WMIH) is the most popular stock in this table, whereas Agree Realty Corporation (NYSE:ADC) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Marten Transport, Ltd (NASDAQ:MRTN) is not the least popular stock in this group, but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard WMIH might be a better candidate to consider a long position.