Amsurg Corp (AMSG): Insiders Aren’t Crazy About It

Amsurg Corp (NASDAQ:AMSG) investors should be aware of a decrease in support from the world’s most elite money managers recently.

In today’s marketplace, there are plenty of metrics investors can use to track their holdings. Two of the most useful are hedge fund and insider trading interest. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best hedge fund managers can trounce the broader indices by a very impressive amount (see just how much).

Equally as integral, bullish insider trading sentiment is another way to parse down the stock market universe. Just as you’d expect, there are plenty of stimuli for an upper level exec to downsize shares of his or her company, but only one, very simple reason why they would buy. Many academic studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this strategy if shareholders understand where to look (learn more here).

With these “truths” under our belt, we’re going to take a look at the key action surrounding Amsurg Corp (NASDAQ:AMSG).

What have hedge funds been doing with Amsurg Corp (NASDAQ:AMSG)?

At Q1’s end, a total of 12 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -8% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes meaningfully.

According to our comprehensive database, Polar Capital, managed by Brian Ashford-Russell and Tim Woolley, holds the most valuable position in Amsurg Corp (NASDAQ:AMSG). Polar Capital has a $8.6 million position in the stock, comprising 0.4% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell of Arrowstreet Capital, with a $6.3 million position; the fund has 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other hedgies with similar optimism include Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, Andrew Sandler’s Sandler Capital Management and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.

Seeing as Amsurg Corp (NASDAQ:AMSG) has witnessed a declination in interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there lies a certain “tier” of money managers who were dropping their entire stakes last quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management dumped the biggest position of the 450+ funds we monitor, comprising about $0.4 million in stock., and David Costen Haley of HBK Investments was right behind this move, as the fund cut about $0.2 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 1 funds last quarter.

What do corporate executives and insiders think about Amsurg Corp (NASDAQ:AMSG)?

Bullish insider trading is particularly usable when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest half-year time period, Amsurg Corp (NASDAQ:AMSG) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and 5 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s go over hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Amsurg Corp (NASDAQ:AMSG). These stocks are Community Health Systems (NYSE:CYH), Health Management Associates Inc (NYSE:HMA), LifePoint Hospitals, Inc. (NASDAQ:LPNT), Select Medical Holdings Corporation (NYSE:SEM), and Vanguard Health Systems, Inc. (NYSE:VHS). This group of stocks are the members of the hospitals industry and their market caps are similar to AMSG’s market cap.

With the results exhibited by our strategies, retail investors should always monitor hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Amsurg Corp (NASDAQ:AMSG) shareholders fit into this picture quite nicely.

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