Do Hedge Funds and Insiders Love Bemis Company, Inc. (BMS)?

To many of your peers, hedge funds are perceived as useless, old investment vehicles of a forgotten age. Although there are over 8,000 hedge funds trading in present day, Insider Monkey aim at the moguls of this group, about 525 funds. It is assumed that this group has its hands on the majority of all hedge funds’ total capital, and by tracking their highest quality equity investments, we’ve come up with a number of investment strategies that have historically outstripped Mr. 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 began to sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have beaten the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (find a sample of our picks).

Just as necessary, bullish insider trading activity is a second way to analyze the world of equities. Just as you’d expect, there are lots of incentives for an upper level exec to get rid of shares of his or her company, but only one, very simple reason why they would initiate a purchase. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this tactic if shareholders know what to do (learn more here).

Thus, we’re going to study the latest info about Bemis Company, Inc. (NYSE:BMS).

How are hedge funds trading Bemis Company, Inc. (NYSE:BMS)?

At the end of the second quarter, a total of 14 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 40% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings significantly.

When using filings from the hedgies we track, David Harding’s Winton Capital Management had the largest position in Bemis Company, Inc. (NYSE:BMS), worth close to $55.7 million, comprising 0.7% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Chuck Royce of Royce & Associates, with a $18.2 million position; the fund has 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining hedge funds that are bullish include Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.

As industrywide interest increased, particular hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. Winton Capital Management, managed by David Harding, established the biggest position in Bemis Company, Inc. (NYSE:BMS). Winton Capital Management had 55.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates also made a $18.2 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new BMS investors: Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.

What have insiders been doing with Bemis Company, Inc. (NYSE:BMS)?

Insider buying made by high-level executives is most useful when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest half-year time frame, Bemis Company, Inc. (NYSE:BMS) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, 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 Bemis Company, Inc. (NYSE:BMS). These stocks are Sealed Air Corp (NYSE:SEE), AptarGroup, Inc. (NYSE:ATR), Tupperware Brands Corporation (NYSE:TUP), Packaging Corp Of America (NYSE:PKG), and Owens-Illinois Inc (NYSE:OI). All of these stocks are in the packaging & containers industry and their market caps resemble BMS’s market cap.

Using the returns demonstrated by Insider Monkey’s tactics, average investors must always keep one eye on hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Bemis Company, Inc. (NYSE:BMS) applies perfectly to this mantra.

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