Cogent Communications Group, Inc. (CCOI): Are Hedge Funds Right About This Stock?

Is Cogent Communications Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI) the right pick for your portfolio? The smart money is getting more optimistic. The number of long hedge fund bets advanced by 1 recently.

To the average investor, there are tons of metrics shareholders can use to monitor stocks. Two of the most under-the-radar are hedge fund and insider trading movement. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best hedge fund managers can outperform the S&P 500 by a significant amount (see just how much).

Just as key, optimistic insider trading sentiment is a second way to parse down the marketplace. Just as you’d expect, there are plenty of motivations for an upper level exec to get rid of shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would buy. Various academic studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this method if shareholders know where to look (learn more here).

Consequently, we’re going to take a look at the recent action surrounding Cogent Communications Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI).

What have hedge funds been doing with Cogent Communications Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI)?

At the end of the first quarter, a total of 15 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 7% from the previous quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes considerably.

Of the funds we track, Jericho Capital Asset Management, managed by Josh Resnick, holds the most valuable position in Cogent Communications Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI). Jericho Capital Asset Management has a $37.4 million position in the stock, comprising 3.9% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Spencer M. Waxman of Shannon River Fund Management, with a $19.9 million position; 2.3% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other hedgies that are bullish include Malcolm Fairbairn’s Ascend Capital, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies and Drew Cupps’s Cupps Capital Management.

Now, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Wexford Capital, managed by Charles Davidson, created the largest position in Cogent Communications Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI). Wexford Capital had 0.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Mike Vranos’s Ellington also initiated a $0.4 million position during the quarter. The only other fund with a new position in the stock is Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management.

Insider trading activity in Cogent Communications Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI)

Bullish insider trading is at its handiest when the primary stock in question has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last six-month time period, Cogent Communications Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and 7 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 Cogent Communications Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI). These stocks are Neustar Inc (NYSE:NSR), Premiere Global Services, Inc. (NYSE:PGI), Telecom Argentina S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:TEO), Vonage Holdings Corp. (NYSE:VG), and Oi SA (ADR) (NYSE:OIBR). This group of stocks are in the diversified communication services industry and their market caps resemble CCOI’s market cap.

With the returns shown by the aforementioned research, everyday investors must always monitor hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Cogent Communications Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI) shareholders fit into this picture quite nicely.

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