Where Do Hedge Funds Stand On GEE Group Inc. (JOB)?

After several tireless days we have finished crunching the numbers from nearly 900 13F filings issued by the elite hedge funds and other investment firms that we track at Insider Monkey, which disclosed those firms’ equity portfolios as of March 31st. The results of that effort will be put on display in this article, as we share valuable insight into the smart money sentiment towards GEE Group Inc. (NYSE:JOB).

Hedge fund interest in GEE Group Inc. (NYSE:JOB) shares was flat at the end of last quarter. This is usually a negative indicator. Our calculations also showed that JOB isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings). 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 InnSuites Hospitality Trust (NYSE:IHT), Barnwell Industries, Inc. (NYSE:BRN), and Sphere 3D Corp. (NASDAQ:ANY) to gather more data points.

In the financial world there are a large number of tools investors have at their disposal to grade stocks. A pair of the most under-the-radar tools are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outperform the broader indices by a solid amount. Insider Monkey’s monthly stock picks returned 206.8% since March 2017 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 115 percentage points (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, an activist hedge fund wants to buy this $26 biotech stock for $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. Keeping this in mind let’s review the key hedge fund action surrounding GEE Group Inc. (NYSE:JOB).

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

At Q1’s end, a total of 3 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 0% from the fourth quarter of 2020. By comparison, 1 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in JOB a year ago. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

More specifically, Renaissance Technologies was the largest shareholder of GEE Group Inc. (NYSE:JOB), with a stake worth $1.6 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing Renaissance Technologies was Intrepid Capital Management, which amassed a stake valued at $0.1 million. Two Sigma Advisors was 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 Intrepid Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to GEE Group Inc. (NYSE:JOB), around 0.05% of its 13F portfolio. Renaissance Technologies is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.002 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to JOB.

Earlier we told you that the aggregate hedge fund interest in the stock was unchanged and we view this as a negative development. Even though there weren’t any hedge funds dumping their holdings during the third quarter, there weren’t any hedge funds initiating brand new positions. This indicates that hedge funds, at the very best, perceive this stock as dead money and they haven’t identified any viable catalysts that can attract investor attention.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as GEE Group Inc. (NYSE:JOB) but similarly valued. We will take a look at InnSuites Hospitality Trust (NYSE:IHT), Barnwell Industries, Inc. (NYSE:BRN), Sphere 3D Corp. (NASDAQ:ANY), Creative Realities, Inc. (NASDAQ:CREX), Virpax Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRPX), JanOne Inc. (NASDAQ:JAN), and LM Funding America, Inc. (NASDAQ:LMFA). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble JOB’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 1.6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $0 million. That figure was $2 million in JOB’s case. InnSuites Hospitality Trust (NYSE:IHT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Sphere 3D Corp. (NASDAQ:ANY) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks GEE Group Inc. (NYSE:JOB) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for JOB is 85. 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 17.2% in 2021 through June 11th and still beat the market by 3.3 percentage points. Unfortunately JOB wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on JOB were disappointed as the stock returned -51.2% since the end of the first quarter (through 6/11) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

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