Now, according to many market players, hedge funds are assumed to be bloated, old investment tools of a period lost to current times. Although there are In excess of 8,000 hedge funds in operation in present day, this site focuses on the masters of this club, around 525 funds. Analysts calculate that this group has its hands on the lion’s share of the smart money’s total capital, and by paying attention to their highest quality investments, we’ve come up with a few investment strategies that have historically outpaced the market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points a year 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 outperformed the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (find the details here).
Equally as necessary, positive insider trading activity is another way to look at the financial markets. Obviously, there are a number of reasons for a bullish insider to sell shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would behave bullishly. Various empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this tactic if you know what to do (learn more here).
Keeping this in mind, we’re going to examine the latest info surrounding Alere Inc (NYSE:ALR).
Hedge fund activity in Alere Inc (NYSE:ALR)
At Q2’s end, a total of 25 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 0% from the first quarter. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially.
According to our 13F database, Scopia Capital, managed by Matt Sirovich and Jeremy Mindich, holds the biggest position in Alere Inc (NYSE:ALR). Scopia Capital has a $90.9 million position in the stock, comprising 2.5% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Oaktree Capital Management, managed by Howard Marks, which held a $42.9 million position; the fund has 0.9% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other hedgies that hold long positions include Gregg J. Powers’s Private Capital Management, Quincy Lee’s Ancient Art (Teton Capital) and Ric Dillon’s Diamond Hill Capital.
Judging by the fact that Alere Inc (NYSE:ALR) has witnessed bearish sentiment from the top-tier hedge fund industry, logic holds that there lies a certain “tier” of money managers that decided to sell off their full holdings heading into Q2. Interestingly, Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management sold off the largest investment of the 450+ funds we monitor, worth close to $11.5 million in stock, and Kevin Kotler of Broadfin Capital was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $8.9 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).
How are insiders trading Alere Inc (NYSE:ALR)?
Legal insider trading, particularly when it’s bullish, is best served when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last 180-day time frame, Alere Inc (NYSE:ALR) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and 5 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
We’ll check out the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Alere Inc (NYSE:ALR). These stocks are PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI), WuXi PharmaTech (Cayman) Inc. (ADR) (NYSE:WX), PAREXEL International Corporation (NASDAQ:PRXL), ICON plc – Ordinary Shares (NASDAQ:ICLR), and Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:IRWD). This group of stocks are the members of the medical laboratories & research industry and their market caps are similar to ALR’s market cap.
