Do Hedge Funds and Insiders Love DuPont Fabros Technology, Inc. (DFT)?

DuPont Fabros Technology, Inc. (NYSE:DFT) investors should pay attention to a decrease in support from the world’s most elite money managers in recent months.

To most market participants, hedge funds are assumed to be slow, old investment vehicles of the past. While there are more than 8000 funds trading today, we at Insider Monkey hone in on the moguls of this group, about 450 funds. Most estimates calculate that this group oversees most of all hedge funds’ total asset base, and by watching their top picks, we have formulated a number of investment strategies that have historically outperformed Mr. Market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outpaced the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per 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 24 percentage points in 7 months (check out a sample of our picks).

Equally as beneficial, optimistic insider trading sentiment is a second way to parse down the financial markets. There are a number of incentives for an executive to sell shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would buy. Several empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this tactic if investors understand where to look (learn more here).

With all of this in mind, it’s important to take a glance at the recent action regarding DuPont Fabros Technology, Inc. (NYSE:DFT).

What does the smart money think about DuPont Fabros Technology, Inc. (NYSE:DFT)?

At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 6 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -33% from the third quarter. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings considerably.

According to our comprehensive database, Jeffrey Furber’s AEW Capital Management had the most valuable position in DuPont Fabros Technology, Inc. (NYSE:DFT), worth close to $60.5 million, comprising 1.6% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Fisher Asset Management, managed by Ken Fisher, which held a $51.6 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other hedge funds that hold long positions include Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management.

Because DuPont Fabros Technology, Inc. (NYSE:DFT) has faced falling interest from the smart money, we can see that there exists a select few hedgies who sold off their positions entirely last quarter. Intriguingly, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies cut the largest stake of the “upper crust” of funds we watch, comprising an estimated $3.9 million in stock.. Eric Bannasch’s fund, Cadian Capital, also cut its stock, about $1.9 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 3 funds last quarter.

What have insiders been doing with DuPont Fabros Technology, Inc. (NYSE:DFT)?

Insider trading activity, especially when it’s bullish, is particularly usable when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest six-month time period, DuPont Fabros Technology, Inc. (NYSE:DFT) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and 2 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 DuPont Fabros Technology, Inc. (NYSE:DFT). These stocks are Jones Lang LaSalle Inc (NYSE:JLL), Kennedy-Wilson Holdings Inc (NYSE:KW), CoStar Group Inc (NASDAQ:CSGP), and Acadia Realty Trust (NYSE:AKR). All of these stocks are in the property management industry and their market caps resemble DFT’s market cap.

With the returns demonstrated by our tactics, retail investors must always watch hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and DuPont Fabros Technology, Inc. (NYSE:DFT) applies perfectly to this mantra.

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