Is it smart to be bullish on bebe stores, inc. (NASDAQ:BEBE)?
In the financial world, there are a multitude of methods investors can use to track publicly traded companies. Two of the best are hedge fund and insider trading movement. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite money managers can trounce the S&P 500 by a significant amount (see just how much).
Just as key, bullish insider trading activity is a second way to look at the stock market universe. As the old adage goes: there are a number of reasons for a bullish insider to drop shares of his or her company, but only one, very obvious reason why they would buy. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this tactic if “monkeys” know where to look (learn more here).
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s analyze the newest info for bebe stores, inc. (NASDAQ:BEBE).
What have hedge funds been doing with bebe stores, inc. (NASDAQ:BEBE)?
At Q2’s end, a total of 7 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of -13% from the first quarter. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes meaningfully.
When using filings from the hedgies we track, Royce & Associates, managed by Chuck Royce, holds the biggest position in bebe stores, inc. (NASDAQ:BEBE). Royce & Associates has a $8.5 million position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies, with a $2.1 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining hedge funds with similar optimism include Mark N. Diker’s Diker Management, and Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management.
Due to the fact bebe stores, inc. (NASDAQ:BEBE) has faced bearish sentiment from upper-tier hedge fund managers, we can see that there exists a select few hedge funds who sold off their full holdings in Q1. At the top of the heap, Joseph A. Jolson’s Harvest Capital Strategies sold off the largest stake of all the hedgies we key on, worth close to $2.2 million in stock. Paul Tudor Jones’s fund, Tudor Investment Corp, also dropped its stock, about $0.2 million worth. These moves are important to note, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 1 funds in Q1.
How are insiders trading bebe stores, inc. (NASDAQ:BEBE)?
Bullish insider trading is most useful when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the latest 180-day time frame, bebe stores, inc. (NASDAQ:BEBE) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
We’ll go over the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to bebe stores, inc. (NASDAQ:BEBE). These stocks are The Wet Seal, Inc. (NASDAQ:WTSL), Shoe Carnival, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCVL), Destination Maternity Corp (NASDAQ:DEST), Stein Mart, Inc. (NASDAQ:SMRT), and Tilly’s Inc (NYSE:TLYS). This group of stocks belong to the apparel stores industry and their market caps are closest to BEBE’s market cap.
