Hedge Funds Have Never Been More Bullish On International Money Express, Inc. (IMXI)

Nina Todic

Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 6:05 PM

The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. We have processed the filings of the more than 700 world-class investment firms that we track and now have access to the collective wisdom contained in these filings, which are based on their March 31 holdings, data that is available nowhere else. Should you consider International Money Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMXI) for your portfolio? We'll look to this invaluable collective wisdom for the answer.

International Money Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMXI) was in 11 hedge funds' portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2019. IMXI investors should pay attention to an increase in hedge fund sentiment lately. There were 10 hedge funds in our database with IMXI holdings at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that imxi isn't among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.

Hedge funds' reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn't keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. 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 market by 40 percentage points since May 2014 through May 30, 2019 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that underperformed the market by 10 percentage points annually between 2006 and 2017. Interestingly the margin of underperformance of these stocks has been increasing in recent years. Investors who are long the market and short these stocks would have returned more than 27% annually between 2015 and 2017. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 in our quarterly newsletter.

Let's take a look at the fresh hedge fund action encompassing International Money Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMXI).

How have hedgies been trading International Money Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMXI)?

At the end of the first quarter, a total of 11 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 10% from the fourth quarter of 2018. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards IMXI over the last 15 quarters. With the smart money's capital changing hands, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

The largest stake in International Money Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMXI) was held by Nantahala Capital Management, which reported holding $36.2 million worth of stock at the end of March. It was followed by Headlands Capital with a $14.3 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Angelo Gordon & Co, BlueCrest Capital Mgmt., and Granite Point Capital.

Now, key money managers were breaking ground themselves. Renaissance Technologies, managed by Jim Simons, initiated the most valuable position in International Money Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMXI). Renaissance Technologies had $0.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Michael Gelband's ExodusPoint Capital also made a $0.3 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The only other fund with a new position in the stock is Ken Griffin's Citadel Investment Group.

Let's now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to International Money Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMXI). We will take a look at ShotSpotter, Inc. (NASDAQ:SSTI), Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services Inc. (NYSE:LTS), Sprague Resources LP (NYSE:SRLP), and Accuray Incorporated (NASDAQ:ARAY). All of these stocks' market caps match IMXI's market cap.

[table] Ticker, No of HFs with positions, Total Value of HF Positions (x1000), Change in HF Position SSTI,7,18488,1 LTS,9,3762,3 SRLP,2,292,1 ARAY,15,89404,-2 Average,8.25,27987,0.75 [/table]

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 8.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $28 million. That figure was $73 million in IMXI's case. Accuray Incorporated (NASDAQ:ARAY) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Sprague Resources LP (NYSE:SRLP) is the least popular one with only 2 bullish hedge fund positions. International Money Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMXI) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 6.2% in Q2 through June 19th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by nearly 3 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on IMXI as the stock returned 21.4% during the same period and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

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

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