Where Do Hedge Funds Stand On Seanergy Maritime Holdings Corp. (SHIP)?

Our extensive research has shown that imitating the smart money can generate significant returns for retail investors, which is why we track nearly 900 active prominent money managers and analyze their quarterly 13F filings. The stocks that are heavily bought by hedge funds historically outperformed the market, though there is no shortage of high profile failures like hedge funds’ 2018 losses in Facebook and Apple. Let’s take a closer look at what the funds we track think about Seanergy Maritime Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:SHIP) in this article.

Seanergy Maritime Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:SHIP) investors should pay attention to an increase in hedge fund interest of late. Seanergy Maritime Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:SHIP) was in 3 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 4. There were 2 hedge funds in our database with SHIP positions at the end of the fourth quarter. Our calculations also showed that SHIP isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).

So, why do we pay attention to hedge fund sentiment before making any investment decisions? Our research has shown that hedge funds’ small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 115 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). We have been able to outperform the passive index funds by tracking the moves of corporate insiders and hedge funds, and we believe small investors can benefit a lot from reading hedge fund investor letters and 13F filings.

Sander Gerber of Hudson Bay Capital

Sander Gerber of Hudson Bay Capital

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 analyze the key hedge fund action regarding Seanergy Maritime Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:SHIP).

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

Heading into the second quarter of 2021, a total of 3 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 50% from the fourth quarter of 2020. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in SHIP over the last 23 quarters. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were adding to their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

The largest stake in Seanergy Maritime Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:SHIP) was held by Sabby Capital, which reported holding $2.1 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by Hudson Bay Capital Management with a $0.1 million position. The only other hedge fund that is bullish on the company was Citadel Investment Group.

As aggregate interest increased, some big names were breaking ground themselves. Sabby Capital, managed by Hal Mintz, created the biggest position in Seanergy Maritime Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:SHIP). Sabby Capital had $2.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Seanergy Maritime Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:SHIP). We will take a look at RealNetworks Inc (NASDAQ:RNWK), Zedge, Inc. (NYSE:ZDGE), Townsquare Media Inc (NYSE:TSQ), Marlin Business Services Corp. (NASDAQ:MRLN), SCYNEXIS Inc (NASDAQ:SCYX), Super League Gaming, Inc. (NASDAQ:SLGG), and Innodata Inc (NASDAQ:INOD). This group of stocks’ market values match SHIP’s market value.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
RNWK 8 14679 4
ZDGE 6 11176 1
TSQ 7 28743 1
MRLN 4 21279 -1
SCYX 5 8863 -1
SLGG 2 642 1
INOD 4 7206 0
Average 5.1 13227 0.7

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 5.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $13 million. That figure was $2 million in SHIP’s case. RealNetworks Inc (NASDAQ:RNWK) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Super League Gaming, Inc. (NASDAQ:SLGG) is the least popular one with only 2 bullish hedge fund positions. Seanergy Maritime Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:SHIP) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for SHIP is 36.8. 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. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on SHIP as the stock returned 8.5% since the end of the first quarter (through 6/11) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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