In the financial world, there are dozens of gauges shareholders can use to watch Mr. Market. Two of the most useful are hedge fund and insider trading movement. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best money managers can outclass the market by a superb amount (see just how much).
Equally as key, bullish insider trading activity is a second way to parse down the marketplace. Obviously, there are a variety of stimuli for an executive to drop shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would behave bullishly. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this tactic if shareholders know where to look (learn more here).
Now, we’re going to take a gander at the key action surrounding AEP Industries (NASDAQ:AEPI).
What have hedge funds been doing with AEP Industries (NASDAQ:AEPI)?
At Q1’s end, a total of 7 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of -13% from the previous quarter. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings significantly.
Of the funds we track, Renaissance Technologies, managed by Jim Simons, holds the biggest position in AEP Industries (NASDAQ:AEPI). Renaissance Technologies has a $10.1 million position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio. On Renaissance Technologies’s heels is Joel Greenblatt of Gotham Asset Management, with a $2 million position; the fund has 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other peers with similar optimism include Peter Algert and Kevin Coldiron’s Algert Coldiron Investors, John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.
Seeing as AEP Industries (NASDAQ:AEPI) has faced bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, logic holds that there lies a certain “tier” of fund managers that elected to cut their positions entirely at the end of the first quarter. Intriguingly, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital cut the largest investment of the “upper crust” of funds we watch, worth close to $0.4 million in stock.. Israel Englander’s fund, Millennium Management, also sold off its stock, about $0.2 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 1 funds at the end of the first quarter.
How are insiders trading AEP Industries (NASDAQ:AEPI)?
Bullish insider trading is particularly usable when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the last half-year time period, AEP Industries (NASDAQ:AEPI) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and 6 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
With the results shown by our time-tested strategies, everyday investors should always monitor hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and AEP Industries (NASDAQ:AEPI) is no exception.
