Do Hedge Funds and Insiders Love Blucora Inc (BCOR)?

Is Blucora Inc (NASDAQ:BCOR) a good investment?

If you were to ask many of your fellow readers, hedge funds are perceived as bloated, outdated financial vehicles of a period lost to current times. Although there are over 8,000 hedge funds trading today, Insider Monkey focuses on the leaders of this group, around 525 funds. It is widely held that this group controls the lion’s share of all hedge funds’ total capital, and by watching their highest performing investments, we’ve brought to light a number of investment strategies that have historically outpaced the S&P 500. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy beat the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points annually 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).

Equally as necessary, bullish insider trading sentiment is a second way to look at the world of equities. Obviously, there are a variety of motivations for an executive to cut shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would buy. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this method if you understand where to look (learn more here).

Thus, we’re going to discuss the recent info about Blucora Inc (NASDAQ:BCOR).

What does the smart money think about Blucora Inc (NASDAQ:BCOR)?

At Q2’s end, a total of 24 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 41% from the previous quarter. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes meaningfully.

When using filings from the hedgies we track, Steven Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors had the biggest position in Blucora Inc (NASDAQ:BCOR), worth close to $32.5 million, accounting for 0.2% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Renaissance Technologies, managed by Jim Simons, which held a $30.2 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other peers with similar optimism include Howard Guberman’s Gruss Asset Management, Richard Rubin’s Hawkeye Capital and Martin Whitman’s Third Avenue Management.

Now, certain money managers have jumped into Blucora Inc (NASDAQ:BCOR) headfirst. SAC Capital Advisors, managed by Steven Cohen, initiated the most valuable position in Blucora Inc (NASDAQ:BCOR). SAC Capital Advisors had 32.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies also made a $30.2 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Howard Guberman’s Gruss Asset Management, Richard Rubin’s Hawkeye Capital, and Martin Whitman’s Third Avenue Management.

Insider trading activity in Blucora Inc (NASDAQ:BCOR)

Insider buying made by high-level executives is most useful when the primary stock in question has experienced transactions within the past six months. Over the latest six-month time period, Blucora Inc (NASDAQ:BCOR) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and zero 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 Blucora Inc (NASDAQ:BCOR). These stocks are Bitauto Hldg Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:BITA), Move Inc. (NASDAQ:MOVE), Web.com Group Inc (NASDAQ:WWWW), SouFun Holdings Limited (ADR) (NYSE:SFUN), and HealthStream, Inc. (NASDAQ:HSTM). This group of stocks are the members of the internet information providers industry and their market caps resemble BCOR’s market cap.

Using the results demonstrated by Insider Monkey’s tactics, average investors should always track hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Blucora Inc (NASDAQ:BCOR) shareholders fit into this picture quite nicely.

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