Deckers Outdoor Corp (DECK): Hedge Funds Aren’t Crazy About It, Insider Sentiment Unchanged

Now, according to many of your fellow readers, hedge funds are perceived as overrated, old financial tools of an era lost to time. Although there are over 8,000 hedge funds with their doors open today, Insider Monkey looks at the crème de la crème of this club, around 525 funds. It is widely held that this group has its hands on the lion’s share of all hedge funds’ total assets, and by monitoring their best stock picks, we’ve figured out a number of investment strategies that have historically outperformed the 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 started sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have trumped the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (find a sample of our picks).

Equally as key, positive insider trading activity is another way to look at the marketplace. Obviously, there are a variety of reasons for an insider to cut shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would buy. Various empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this strategy if piggybackers know where to look (learn more here).

What’s more, let’s analyze the latest info about Deckers Outdoor Corp (NASDAQ:DECK).

How are hedge funds trading Deckers Outdoor Corp (NASDAQ:DECK)?

Heading into Q3, a total of 25 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -17% from the previous quarter. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially.

Out of the hedge funds we follow, Tiger Consumer Management, managed by Patrick McCormack, holds the most valuable position in Deckers Outdoor Corp (NASDAQ:DECK). Tiger Consumer Management has a $79.5 million position in the stock, comprising 2.8% of its 13F portfolio. On Tiger Consumer Management’s heels is Royce & Associates, managed by Chuck Royce, which held a $56.4 million position; the fund has 0.2% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other hedge funds that hold long positions include John Thiessen’s Vertex One Asset Management, and Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management.

Since Deckers Outdoor Corp (NASDAQ:DECK) has faced bearish sentiment from the top-tier hedge fund industry, logic holds that there was a specific group of hedgies that slashed their entire stakes last quarter. Intriguingly, Alexander Mitchell’s Scopus Asset Management sold off the biggest stake of all the hedgies we key on, totaling close to $30.1 million in stock. Craig C. Albert’s fund, Sheffield Asset Management, also said goodbye to its stock, about $23.3 million worth. These moves are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 5 funds last quarter.

What do corporate executives and insiders think about Deckers Outdoor Corp (NASDAQ:DECK)?

Insider buying is best served when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest six-month time frame, Deckers Outdoor Corp (NASDAQ:DECK) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, 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 Deckers Outdoor Corp (NASDAQ:DECK). These stocks are Crocs, Inc. (NASDAQ:CROX), Tumi Holdings Inc (NYSE:TUMI), Wolverine World Wide, Inc. (NYSE:WWW), Iconix Brand Group Inc (NASDAQ:ICON), and Steven Madden, Ltd. (NASDAQ:SHOO). This group of stocks belong to the textile – apparel footwear & accessories industry and their market caps are similar to DECK’s market cap.

Using the results shown by Insider Monkey’s tactics, regular investors must always track hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Deckers Outdoor Corp (NASDAQ:DECK) applies perfectly to this mantra.

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