Three Stocks Surge on Monday but See What Hedge Funds Say about Their Long-Term Run

As the market has been trading lower in the first hours after the bell on Monday, a number of companies have been advancing, although many of them are too small to have a major impact on the broader indices. Nevertheless, let’s take a look at three of the top gainers and see whether you should still bet on them based on hedge fund sentiment.

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Hedge fund sentiment is an important metric that could help retail investors identify some worthy buying opportunities, because smart money always conduct due diligence while picking their next investment. At Insider Monkey, we have conducted extensive backtests that covered the period between 1999 and 2012, which showed that following some of the hedge fund industry’s top ideas can outrun the market. However, the key is to focus on their top small-cap picks, rather than their most popular stocks, which lagged the market by seven basis points per month in backtests, as opposed to returns of 95 basis points above the market registered by the small-cap picks. Our strategy involves imitating these 15 small-cap picks among over 700 hedge funds and it has returned over 118% since August 2012, outperforming the market by some 60 percentage points (read more details here).

With this in mind, let’s take a look at the top gainers today, starting with Turtle Beach Corp (NASDAQ:HEAR), whose stock has advanced by over 22% so far today, on a volume of 3.41 million shares, compared to an average of just 119,700. It is not clear what has sparked today’s boost, as there hasn’t been any significant news since last Thursday, when Oppenheimer initiated coverage on the stock with an ‘Outperform’ rating and a price target of $6.00, which represents an upside of almost 200% to the current price. Nevertheless, Turtle Beach Corp (NASDAQ:HEAR), which sells audio peripherals for video game consoles (including licensed headsets for Xbox One and PlayStation 4), PC’s, and mobile devices, is a company that was under the radars of most smart money investors. Turtle Beach Corp (NASDAQ:HEAR) was included in the equity portfolios of only three funds from our database, which held only $925,000 worth of the company’s outstanding stock, including billionaires David Shaw’s D.E. Shaw and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, which own 12,095 shares and 11,537 shares as of the end of June respectively.

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The stock of the producer of micro-acoustic solutions, Knowles Corp (NYSE:KN) has advanced by more than 8% in Monday intraday trading on a volume roughly double compared to average. The gains come on the back of FBR & Co. issuing a note in which it upgraded the stock to ‘Market Perform’ from ‘Underperform’ and increased the price target to $18 from $17. The stock overall has a consensus price target above $22, which represents a premium of roughly 35% to the current price. However, among the funds from our database, Knowles Corp (NYSE:KN) lost some popularity between April and June, as the number of funds with long positions slid by five to 16, while the total value of their holdings fell to $142.54 million from $153.06 million and accounted for 9.30% of the company’s market value at the end of June. Among these investors, the largest stake is held by David Goel and Paul Ferri’s Matrix Capital Management, which reported owning 2.69 million shares in its latest 13F.

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Finally, Ballard Power Systems Inc. (USA) (NASDAQ:BLDP)‘s stock opened higher but has retracted by around six percentage points to 7% in the green on huge trading volume, roughly four times more than average. The news that fueled today’s growth comes from China, where Ballard Power System inked a $6 million joint development and supply agreement  with the rolling stock manufacturer CRRC Qingdao Sifang. Ballard Power Systems Inc. (USA) (NASDAQ:BLDP), which develops proton exchange membrane fuel cells, will develop a fuel cell engine together with CRRC Sifang, which will be used in low-floor trams manufactured by the latter. The new deal could increase the confidence of investors in Ballard Power Systems Inc. (USA) (NASDAQ:BLDP), because so far it has been lagging with only three funds from our database owning shares with an aggregate value of $782,000. Among them, the largest stake is held by Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies, which owns 320,300 shares.

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