Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN): Insiders Aren’t Crazy About It

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) investors should pay attention to an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers of late.

If you’d ask most stock holders, hedge funds are perceived as slow, old investment tools of yesteryear. While there are greater than 8000 funds with their doors open today, we at Insider Monkey hone in on the leaders of this club, about 450 funds. It is estimated that this group controls the majority of all hedge funds’ total capital, and by keeping an eye on their best picks, we have spotted a few investment strategies that have historically outpaced the S&P 500 index. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per annum for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve started sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have topped the S&P 500 index by 24 percentage points in 7 months (see all of our picks from August).

Equally as integral, positive insider trading sentiment is a second way to break down the financial markets. Just as you’d expect, there are many incentives for a bullish insider to cut shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would buy. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this tactic if shareholders know where to look (learn more here).

With all of this in mind, we’re going to take a glance at the key action regarding Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN).

What have hedge funds been doing with Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)?

At the end of the first quarter, a total of 70 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 9% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings significantly.

Of the funds we track, Fisher Asset Management, managed by Ken Fisher, holds the largest position in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN). Fisher Asset Management has a $640.2 million position in the stock, comprising 1.7% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Paul Ruddock and Steve Heinz of Lansdowne Partners, with a $496.2 million position; the fund has 6.8% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other hedgies that hold long positions include Chase Coleman and Feroz Dewan’s Tiger Global Management LLC, Steven Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors and Rob Citrone’s Discovery Capital Management.

As industrywide interest jumped, some big names were breaking ground themselves. Scout Capital Management, managed by James Crichton and Adam Weiss, assembled the biggest position in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN). Scout Capital Management had 199.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Donald Chiboucis’s Columbus Circle Investors also initiated a $103.3 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new AMZN positions are Daniel Benton’s Andor Capital Management, John Wu’s Sureview Capital, and John Burbank’s Passport Capital.

What do corporate executives and insiders think about Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)?

Insider purchases made by high-level executives is most useful when the company in focus has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the last 180-day time frame, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and 13 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s check out hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN). These stocks are PC Connection, Inc. (NASDAQ:PCCC), Liquidity Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:LQDT), Mercadolibre Inc (NASDAQ:MELI), Liberty Interactive (Interactive group) (NASDAQ:LINTA), and eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY). This group of stocks are the members of the catalog & mail order houses industry and their market caps resemble AMZN’s market cap.