Now, according to many of your peers, hedge funds are perceived as overrated, outdated investment tools of a period lost to current times. Although there are over 8,000 hedge funds trading currently, this site looks at the elite of this group, close to 525 funds. It is widely held that this group controls most of the hedge fund industry’s total assets, and by paying attention to their highest quality investments, we’ve unsheathed a number of investment strategies that have historically outstripped Mr. Market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed 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 outpaced the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (find the details here).
Just as useful, optimistic insider trading activity is a second way to look at the financial markets. Obviously, there are lots of stimuli for a corporate insider to get rid of shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would buy. Various empirical studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this tactic if you know what to do (learn more here).
Keeping this in mind, let’s analyze the latest info for Biglari Holdings Inc (NYSE:BH).
Hedge fund activity in Biglari Holdings Inc (NYSE:BH)
At Q2’s end, a total of 5 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -38% from the first quarter. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings meaningfully.
Out of the hedge funds we follow, GAMCO Investors, managed by Mario Gabelli, holds the most valuable position in Biglari Holdings Inc (NYSE:BH). GAMCO Investors has a $43.6 million position in the stock, comprising 0.3% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies, with a $5 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other hedge funds that hold long positions include Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management, D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.
Judging by the fact that Biglari Holdings Inc (NYSE:BH) has experienced dropping sentiment from upper-tier hedge fund managers, logic holds that there is a sect of funds that elected to cut their full holdings at the end of the second quarter. Interestingly, J. Carlo Cannell’s Cannell Capital said goodbye to the biggest position of the “upper crust” of funds we monitor, valued at close to $0.5 million in stock, and John Overdeck and David Siegel of Two Sigma Advisors was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $0.3 million worth. These moves are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 3 funds at the end of the second quarter.
What do corporate executives and insiders think about Biglari Holdings Inc (NYSE:BH)?
Insider buying is most useful when the company in question has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last half-year time period, Biglari Holdings Inc (NYSE:BH) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
We’ll also review the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Biglari Holdings Inc (NYSE:BH). These stocks are Fiesta Restaurant Group Inc (NASDAQ:FRGI), Ruby Tuesday, Inc. (NYSE:RT), CEC Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:CEC), Chuy’s Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:CHUY), and Denny’s Corporation (NASDAQ:DENN). This group of stocks belong to the restaurants industry and their market caps are similar to BH’s market cap.