Hedge Funds and other institutional investors have just completed filing their 13Fs with the Securities and Exchange Commission, revealing their equity portfolios as of the end of March. At Insider Monkey, we follow nearly 750 active hedge funds and notable investors and by analyzing their 13F filings, we can determine the stocks that they are collectively bullish on. One of their picks is NII Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:NIHD), so let’s take a closer look at the sentiment that surrounds it in the current quarter.
Is NII Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:NIHD) a buy here? Hedge funds are in a bearish mood. The number of bullish hedge fund positions fell by 4 in recent months. Our calculations also showed that NIHD isn't among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds. NIHD was in 14 hedge funds' portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2019. There were 18 hedge funds in our database with NIHD positions at the end of the previous quarter.
Why do we pay any attention at all to hedge fund sentiment? Our research has shown that hedge funds' large-cap stock picks indeed failed to beat the market between 1999 and 2016. However, we were 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'll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 30.9% through May 30, 2019. That's why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
Let's analyze the recent hedge fund action surrounding NII Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:NIHD).
What have hedge funds been doing with NII Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:NIHD)?
At Q1's end, a total of 14 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -22% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in NIHD over the last 15 quarters. So, let's examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
The largest stake in NII Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:NIHD) was held by 683 Capital Partners, which reported holding $25.8 million worth of stock at the end of March. It was followed by Point State Capital with a $6.5 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included AQR Capital Management, Kavi Asset Management, and Citadel Investment Group.