Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAWW): Are Hedge Funds Right About This Stock?

Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAWW) has experienced a decrease in support from the world’s most elite money managers of late.

To most traders, hedge funds are seen as worthless, old investment vehicles of yesteryear. While there are more than 8000 funds trading today, we at Insider Monkey hone in on the crème de la crème of this club, about 450 funds. Most estimates calculate that this group has its hands on most of all hedge funds’ total asset base, and by monitoring their top picks, we have come up with a number of investment strategies that have historically beaten the S&P 500 index. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per year 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 trumped the S&P 500 index by 25 percentage points in 6.5 month (explore the details and some picks here).

Equally as beneficial, positive insider trading sentiment is another way to parse down the financial markets. Just as you’d expect, there are many incentives for a corporate insider to cut shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would behave bullishly. Various empirical studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this tactic if shareholders understand what to do (learn more here).

Consequently, we’re going to take a peek at the key action regarding Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAWW).

How have hedgies been trading Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAWW)?

At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 12 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 0% from the third quarter. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings considerably.

Of the funds we track, Amy Minella’s Cardinal Capital had the most valuable position in Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAWW), worth close to $43 million, comprising 2.9% of its total 13F portfolio. On Cardinal Capital’s heels is Edward Goodnow of Goodnow Investment Group, with a $24 million position; 0% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other hedge funds that hold long positions include D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management and Paul Reeder and Edward Shapiro’s PAR Capital Management.

Because Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAWW) has witnessed bearish sentiment from the smart money, we can see that there were a few fund managers that slashed their positions entirely in Q4. Intriguingly, Steven Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors sold off the largest position of the 450+ funds we key on, worth close to $8 million in stock., and Ken Grossman and Glen Schneider of SG Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $7 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as total hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

How have insiders been trading Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAWW)?

Insider buying is particularly usable when the company in question has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last 180-day time frame, Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAWW) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and 4 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

With the returns demonstrated by Insider Monkey’s tactics, retail investors should always keep an eye on hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAWW) shareholders fit into this picture quite nicely.

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