Bloomin’ Brands Inc (BLMN): How to Trade It? – Brinker International, Inc. (EAT), Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. (CBRL)

Bloomin’ Brands Inc (NASDAQ:BLMN) has experienced a decrease in support from the world’s most elite money managers in recent months.

If you’d ask most shareholders, hedge funds are perceived as slow, outdated investment tools of years past. While there are greater than 8000 funds trading today, we at Insider Monkey look at the crème de la crème of this group, close to 450 funds. It is estimated that this group controls most of the smart money’s total asset base, and by paying attention to their top picks, we have found a few investment strategies that have historically outstripped Mr. Market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per annum 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 24 percentage points in 7 months (see all of our picks from August).

Equally as key, positive insider trading sentiment is a second way to break down the investments you’re interested in. There are many motivations for a corporate insider to get rid of shares of his or her company, but only one, very obvious reason why they would initiate a purchase. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this method if investors understand where to look (learn more here).

Now, let’s take a look at the recent action encompassing Bloomin’ Brands Inc (NASDAQ:BLMN).

How have hedgies been trading Bloomin’ Brands Inc (NASDAQ:BLMN)?

At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 9 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of -10% from the previous quarter. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes considerably.

Of the funds we track, Glenn J. Krevlin’s Glenhill Advisors had the most valuable position in Bloomin’ Brands Inc (NASDAQ:BLMN), worth close to $13.2 million, accounting for 2.3% of its total 13F portfolio. On Glenhill Advisors’s heels is Tudor Investment Corp, managed by Paul Tudor Jones, which held a $5.7 million position; 0.2% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other hedge funds that are bullish include Richard Driehaus’s Driehaus Capital, Alexander Mitchell’s Scopus Asset Management and Mark Kingdon’s Kingdon Capital.

Due to the fact that Bloomin’ Brands Inc (NASDAQ:BLMN) has experienced declining sentiment from hedge fund managers, it’s easy to see that there was a specific group of money managers who sold off their full holdings heading into 2013. At the top of the heap, Joshua Friedman and Mitchell Julis’s Canyon Capital Advisors dumped the biggest position of all the hedgies we key on, valued at an estimated $6.6 million in stock., and Anand Parekh of Alyeska Investment Group was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $3.4 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 1 funds heading into 2013.

Insider trading activity in Bloomin’ Brands Inc (NASDAQ:BLMN)

Insider trading activity, especially when it’s bullish, is best served when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the latest half-year time frame, Bloomin’ Brands Inc (NASDAQ:BLMN) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s check out hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Bloomin’ Brands Inc (NASDAQ:BLMN). These stocks are Arcos Dorados Holding Inc (NYSE:ARCO), Brinker International, Inc. (NYSE:EAT), Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. (NASDAQ:CBRL), The Cheesecake Factory Incorporated (NASDAQ:CAKE), and The Wendy’s Company (NASDAQ:WEN). This group of stocks are in the restaurants industry and their market caps are similar to BLMN’s market cap.

With the results demonstrated by Insider Monkey’s strategies, everyday investors must always watch hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Bloomin’ Brands Inc (NASDAQ:BLMN) is no exception.

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