Should I Buy Marine Products Corp. (MPX)?

Out of thousands of stocks that are currently traded on the market, it is difficult to identify those that will really generate strong returns. Hedge funds and institutional investors spend millions of dollars on analysts with MBAs and PhDs, who are industry experts and well connected to other industry and media insiders on top of that. Individual investors can piggyback the hedge funds employing these talents and can benefit from their vast resources and knowledge in that way. We analyze quarterly 13F filings of nearly 900 hedge funds and, by looking at the smart money sentiment that surrounds a stock, we can determine whether it has the potential to beat the market over the long-term. Therefore, let’s take a closer look at what smart money thinks about Marine Products Corp. (NYSE:MPX).

Is Marine Products Corp. (NYSE:MPX) a cheap investment today? Money managers were betting on the stock. The number of long hedge fund bets increased by 1 lately. Marine Products Corp. (NYSE:MPX) was in 5 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 6. Our calculations also showed that MPX isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).

Today there are a large number of indicators stock traders employ to size up publicly traded companies. Two of the most useful indicators are hedge fund and insider trading activity. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the elite hedge fund managers can outpace the market by a healthy margin (see the details here). Also, our monthly newsletter’s portfolio of long stock picks returned 206.8% since March 2017 (through May 2021) and beat the S&P 500 Index by more than 115 percentage points. You can download a sample issue of this newsletter on our website .

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, an activist hedge fund owns nearly 40% of this $23 biotech stock and is trying to buy the rest for around $50. So, we recommended a long position to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 10 best battery stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. 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 homepage. With all of this in mind we’re going to check out the latest hedge fund action encompassing Marine Products Corp. (NYSE:MPX).

Do Hedge Funds Think MPX Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At first quarter’s end, a total of 5 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 25% from the fourth quarter of 2020. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards MPX over the last 23 quarters. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Among these funds, GAMCO Investors held the most valuable stake in Marine Products Corp. (NYSE:MPX), which was worth $9.9 million at the end of the fourth quarter. On the second spot was Renaissance Technologies which amassed $2.1 million worth of shares. Arrowstreet Capital, Millennium Management, and Citadel Investment Group were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position GAMCO Investors allocated the biggest weight to Marine Products Corp. (NYSE:MPX), around 0.09% of its 13F portfolio. Renaissance Technologies is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 0.0026 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to MPX.

Now, key money managers were breaking ground themselves. Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, established the most valuable call position in Marine Products Corp. (NYSE:MPX). Citadel Investment Group had $0.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors also initiated a $0.2 million position during the quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Marine Products Corp. (NYSE:MPX). These stocks are Daseke, Inc. (NASDAQ:DSKE), RAPT Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:RAPT), Eagle Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:EGRX), Urstadt Biddle Properties Inc. (NYSE:UBP), Global Cord Blood Corp (NYSE:CO), ProSight Global, Inc. (NYSE:PROS), and GasLog Ltd (NYSE:GLOG). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble MPX’s market cap.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 11.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $48 million. That figure was $14 million in MPX’s case. Eagle Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:EGRX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Urstadt Biddle Properties Inc. (NYSE:UBP) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Marine Products Corp. (NYSE:MPX) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for MPX is 43.5. 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. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 17.4% in 2021 through June 18th and still beat the market by 6.1 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on MPX as the stock returned 13% since the end of the first quarter (through 6/18) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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