Do Hedge Funds and Insiders Love Cutera, Inc. (CUTR)?

Is Cutera, Inc. (NASDAQ:CUTR) worth your attention right now? Money managers are in a bearish mood. The number of long hedge fund positions stayed the same which is a slightly negative development in our experience.

In the financial world, there are plenty of gauges market participants can use to watch stocks. A pair of the most useful are hedge fund and insider trading interest. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the top money managers can outperform their index-focused peers by a solid margin (see just how much).

Equally as integral, positive insider trading activity is another way to parse down the financial markets. Obviously, there are a number of reasons for an upper level exec to cut shares of his or her company, but only one, very simple reason why they would buy. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this strategy if you understand what to do (learn more here).

With all of this in mind, let’s take a peek at the key action regarding Cutera, Inc. (NASDAQ:CUTR).

How have hedgies been trading Cutera, Inc. (NASDAQ:CUTR)?

At Q1’s end, a total of 12 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 0% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes meaningfully.

According to our comprehensive database, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies had the largest position in Cutera, Inc. (NASDAQ:CUTR), worth close to $8.7 million, comprising less than 0.1%% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Mario Gabelli of GAMCO Investors, with a $7.5 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other hedgies that hold long positions include Joseph Edelman’s Perceptive Advisors, Richard Driehaus’s Driehaus Capital and Nathan Fischel’s DAFNA Capital Management.

Due to the fact that Cutera, Inc. (NASDAQ:CUTR) has witnessed falling interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there is a sect of money managers that decided to sell off their full holdings heading into Q2. At the top of the heap, Jeremy Green’s Redmile Group dropped the biggest position of the 450+ funds we key on, valued at an estimated $3.1 million in stock.. Gabe Hoffman’s fund, Accipiter Capital Management, also cut its stock, about $1.4 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).

Insider trading activity in Cutera, Inc. (NASDAQ:CUTR)

Insider purchases made by high-level executives is particularly usable when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last 180-day time period, Cutera, Inc. (NASDAQ:CUTR) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and 5 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also review hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Cutera, Inc. (NASDAQ:CUTR). These stocks are Zeltiq Aesthetics Inc (NASDAQ:ZLTQ), Solta Medical Inc (NASDAQ:SLTM), Hansen Medical, Inc. (NASDAQ:HNSN), RTI Biologics Inc. (NASDAQ:RTIX), and Cryolife Inc (NYSE:CRY). This group of stocks are in the medical appliances & equipment industry and their market caps are similar to CUTR’s market cap.

With the returns shown by our studies, everyday investors must always keep an eye on hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Cutera, Inc. (NASDAQ:CUTR) is an important part of this process.

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