Acacia Research Corporation (NASDAQ:ACTG) was in 21 hedge funds’ portfolio at the end of March. ACTG has seen an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds of late. There were 19 hedge funds in our database with ACTG positions at the end of the previous quarter.
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Equally as important, optimistic insider trading activity is a second way to parse down the marketplace. As the old adage goes: there are plenty of stimuli for an executive to cut shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would behave bullishly. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this strategy if shareholders know where to look (learn more here).
Now, it’s important to take a look at the key action surrounding Acacia Research Corporation (NASDAQ:ACTG).
What does the smart money think about Acacia Research Corporation (NASDAQ:ACTG)?
In preparation for this quarter, a total of 21 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 11% from the first quarter. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially.
With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Alydar Capital, managed by John Murphy, assembled the biggest call position in Acacia Research Corporation (NASDAQ:ACTG). Alydar Capital had 1.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital also made a $0.5 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are John W. Rogers’s Ariel Investments and Steven Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors.
Insider trading activity in Acacia Research Corporation (NASDAQ:ACTG)
Insider trading activity, especially when it’s bullish, is best served when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last half-year time frame, Acacia Research Corporation (NASDAQ:ACTG) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, 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 Acacia Research Corporation (NASDAQ:ACTG). These stocks are National Technical Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTSC), National Research Corporation (NASDAQ:NRCI), Qiagen NV (NASDAQ:QGEN), Forrester Research, Inc. (NASDAQ:FORR), and Myriad Genetics, Inc. (NASDAQ:MYGN). This group of stocks belong to the research services industry and their market caps resemble ACTG’s market cap.
