Manulife Financial Corporation (USA) (NYSE:MFC) investors should be aware of an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers of late.
In the 21st century investor’s toolkit, there are plenty of gauges market participants can use to monitor their holdings. A duo of the most innovative are hedge fund and insider trading interest. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best fund managers can trounce the market by a solid margin (see just how much).
Just as key, positive insider trading sentiment is a second way to parse down the investments you’re interested in. Just as you’d expect, there are a variety of stimuli for a bullish insider to drop shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would initiate a purchase. Various academic studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this method if “monkeys” understand what to do (learn more here).
With all of this in mind, let’s take a peek at the key action regarding Manulife Financial Corporation (USA) (NYSE:MFC).
What does the smart money think about Manulife Financial Corporation (USA) (NYSE:MFC)?
At Q1’s end, a total of 12 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 33% from the previous quarter. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings considerably.
According to our comprehensive database, Daniel Bubis’s Tetrem Capital Management had the largest position in Manulife Financial Corporation (USA) (NYSE:MFC), worth close to $62.4 million, accounting for 1.9% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Arrowstreet Capital, managed by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell, which held a $27.7 million position; 0.2% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other hedge funds that are bullish include D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.
As aggregate interest increased, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. D E Shaw, managed by D. E. Shaw, initiated the biggest position in Manulife Financial Corporation (USA) (NYSE:MFC). D E Shaw had 3.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management also made a $2.3 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new MFC investors: Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and Peter Algert and Kevin Coldiron’s Algert Coldiron Investors.
Insider trading activity in Manulife Financial Corporation (USA) (NYSE:MFC)
Insider purchases made by high-level executives is particularly usable when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the last half-year time frame, Manulife Financial Corporation (USA) (NYSE:MFC) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
Let’s also examine hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Manulife Financial Corporation (USA) (NYSE:MFC). These stocks are Sun Life Financial Inc. (USA) (NYSE:SLF), Metlife Inc (NYSE:MET), Prudential Public Limited Company (ADR) (NYSE:PUK), ING Groep N.V. (ADR) (NYSE:ING), and Prudential Financial Inc (NYSE:PRU). This group of stocks are in the life insurance industry and their market caps are closest to MFC’s market cap.
| Company Name | # of Hedge Funds | # of Insiders Buying | # of Insiders Selling |
| Sun Life Financial Inc. (USA) (NYSE:SLF) | 9 | 0 | 0 |
| Metlife Inc (NYSE:MET) | 56 | 0 | 3 |
| Prudential Public Limited Company (ADR) (NYSE:PUK) | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| ING Groep N.V. (ADR) (NYSE:ING) | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| Prudential Financial Inc (NYSE:PRU) | 34 | 1 | 7 |
With the results exhibited by the aforementioned studies, everyday investors should always watch hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Manulife Financial Corporation (USA) (NYSE:MFC) shareholders fit into this picture quite nicely.
