Bazaarvoice Inc (BV): Hedge Funds Are Bullish and Insiders Are Bearish, What Should You Do?

Is Bazaarvoice Inc (NASDAQ:BV) going to take off soon? The best stock pickers are taking an optimistic view. The number of bullish hedge fund positions improved by 6 recently.

In the 21st century investor’s toolkit, there are tons of indicators investors can use to analyze stocks. A duo of the most useful are hedge fund and insider trading activity. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the elite hedge fund managers can outperform their index-focused peers by a significant margin (see just how much).

Equally as key, bullish insider trading sentiment is another way to break down the investments you’re interested in. As the old adage goes: there are lots of incentives for an insider to drop shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would buy. Several empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this strategy if investors understand where to look (learn more here).

Now, let’s take a gander at the latest action regarding Bazaarvoice Inc (NASDAQ:BV).

How have hedgies been trading Bazaarvoice Inc (NASDAQ:BV)?

In preparation for this quarter, a total of 13 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 86% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings considerably.

When looking at the hedgies we track, Scott Fine and Peter Richards’s Empire Capital Management had the biggest position in Bazaarvoice Inc (NASDAQ:BV), worth close to $44.7 million, accounting for 4.3% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Southpoint Capital Advisors, managed by Rob Butts and Josh Clark, which held a $43.9 million position; 2.8% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining hedgies with similar optimism include Michael R. Weisberg’s Crestwood Capital Management, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and Jacob Gottlieb’s Visium Asset Management.

Consequently, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Southpoint Capital Advisors, managed by Rob Butts and Josh Clark, initiated the most valuable position in Bazaarvoice Inc (NASDAQ:BV). Southpoint Capital Advisors had 43.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Jacob Gottlieb’s Visium Asset Management also made a $1.9 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new BV positions are Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, Christopher Zepf and Brian Thonn’s Kingdom Ridge Capital, and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw.

How have insiders been trading Bazaarvoice Inc (NASDAQ:BV)?

Insider purchases made by high-level executives is at its handiest when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest 180-day time frame, Bazaarvoice Inc (NASDAQ:BV) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and zero 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 Bazaarvoice Inc (NASDAQ:BV). These stocks are E2open Inc (NASDAQ:EOPN), Proofpoint Inc (NASDAQ:PFPT), Accelrys, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACCL), SciQuest, Inc. (NASDAQ:SQI), and AutoNavi Holdings Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:AMAP). All of these stocks are in the application software industry and their market caps are similar to BV’s market cap.