Altera Corporation (ALTR): Hedge Funds Are Bullish and Insiders Are Bearish, What Should You Do?

Altera Corporation (NASDAQ:ALTR) investors should pay attention to an increase in hedge fund sentiment recently.

To the average investor, there are a multitude of methods investors can use to track the equity markets. Two of the most underrated are hedge fund and insider trading activity. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top fund managers can outpace the S&P 500 by a significant margin (see just how much).

Just as key, optimistic insider trading activity is another way to parse down the stock market universe. Just as you’d expect, there are a number of reasons for an insider to drop shares of his or her company, but only one, very simple reason why they would buy. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this strategy if piggybackers know what to do (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, we’re going to take a gander at the key action regarding Altera Corporation (NASDAQ:ALTR).

What have hedge funds been doing with Altera Corporation (NASDAQ:ALTR)?

At Q1’s end, a total of 25 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 4% from one quarter earlier. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially.

When looking at the hedgies we track, Boykin Curry’s Eagle Capital Management had the biggest position in Altera Corporation (NASDAQ:ALTR), worth close to $333.7 million, accounting for 2% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is William von Mueffling of Cantillon Capital Management, with a $159.6 million position; the fund has 5.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other hedgies that are bullish include Eric Bannasch’s Cadian Capital, Christopher Lord’s Criterion Capital and Ryan Frick and Oliver Evans’s Dorsal Capital Management.

As one would reasonably expect, key money managers have been driving this bullishness. Criterion Capital, managed by Christopher Lord, created the largest position in Altera Corporation (NASDAQ:ALTR). Criterion Capital had 114.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Leighton Welch’s Welch Capital Partners also initiated a $7.1 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new ALTR investors: Philippe Jabre’s Jabre Capital Partners, SAC Subsidiary’s Sigma Capital Management, and Guru Ramakrishnan’s Meru Capital.

How are insiders trading Altera Corporation (NASDAQ:ALTR)?

Insider trading activity, especially when it’s bullish, is best served when the primary stock in question has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last half-year time period, Altera Corporation (NASDAQ:ALTR) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and 3 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also take a look at hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Altera Corporation (NASDAQ:ALTR). These stocks are LSI Corp (NASDAQ:LSI), ARM Holdings plc (ADR) (NASDAQ:ARMH), Microchip Technology Inc. (NASDAQ:MCHP), NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA), and Linear Technology Corporation (NASDAQ:LLTC). All of these stocks are in the semiconductor – specialized industry and their market caps are similar to ALTR’s market cap.