Autodesk, Inc. (ADSK): Insiders Aren’t Crazy About It

Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK) shareholders have witnessed a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds in recent months.

If you’d ask most traders, hedge funds are assumed to be worthless, old financial tools of years past. While there are more than 8000 funds trading today, we look at the leaders of this group, close to 450 funds. Most estimates calculate that this group has its hands on the lion’s share of the hedge fund industry’s total capital, and by tracking their best stock picks, we have revealed a few investment strategies that have historically beaten Mr. Market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outpaced the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points a year for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve began to sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have outperformed the S&P 500 index by 23.3 percentage points in 8 months (see all of our picks from August).

Equally as key, positive insider trading activity is another way to break down the financial markets. As the old adage goes: there are lots of stimuli for a bullish insider to cut shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would behave bullishly. Various academic studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this method if shareholders understand where to look (learn more here).

Now, it’s important to take a peek at the latest action encompassing Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK).

How are hedge funds trading Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK)?

At Q1’s end, a total of 29 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -9% from the first quarter. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially.

When looking at the hedgies we track, D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw had the biggest position in Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK), worth close to $144.8 million, accounting for 0.3% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Michael Karsch of Karsch Capital Management, with a $114.7 million position; 7.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining hedge funds that hold long positions include Eric Bannasch’s Cadian Capital, Dinakar Singh’s TPG-AXON Management LP and Christopher Lord’s Criterion Capital.

Since Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK) has experienced declining sentiment from hedge fund managers, we can see that there were a few money managers that decided to sell off their positions entirely heading into Q2. Intriguingly, Jeffrey Ubben’s ValueAct Capital dropped the biggest position of all the hedgies we watch, worth about $364.7 million in stock.. Eric Mindich’s fund, Eton Park Capital, also cut its stock, about $17.6 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 3 funds heading into Q2.

What do corporate executives and insiders think about Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK)?

Insider trading activity, especially when it’s bullish, is best served when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last six-month time period, Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and 8 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s check out hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK). These stocks are Infosys Ltd ADR (NYSE:INFY), PTC Inc (NASDAQ:PMTC), Concur Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:CNQR), National Instruments Corp (NASDAQ:NATI), and ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSS). This group of stocks are in the technical & system software industry and their market caps resemble ADSK’s market cap.

With the returns shown by our studies, everyday investors should always watch hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK) is no exception.

Click here to learn why you should track hedge funds