Is NetSpend Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:NTSP) undervalued? Prominent investors are buying. The number of bullish hedge fund bets inched up by 7 in recent months.
Just as important, bullish insider trading sentiment is a second way to parse down the investments you’re interested in. As the old adage goes: there are plenty of stimuli for an executive to get rid of shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would behave bullishly. Various empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this method if investors know what to do (learn more here).
Consequently, we’re going to take a peek at the latest action surrounding NetSpend Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:NTSP).
How have hedgies been trading NetSpend Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:NTSP)?
At Q1’s end, a total of 15 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 88% from the first quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings meaningfully.
When looking at the hedgies we track, Joel Ramin’s 12 West Capital Management had the biggest position in NetSpend Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:NTSP), worth close to $93.7 million, accounting for 15.8% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Alpine Associates, managed by Robert Emil Zoellner, which held a $17.9 million position; the fund has 0.7% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other hedgies with similar optimism include Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management, Jean-Marie Eveillard’s First Eagle Investment Management and Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies.
With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Alpine Associates, managed by Robert Emil Zoellner, assembled the most valuable position in NetSpend Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:NTSP). Alpine Associates had 17.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Jean-Marie Eveillard’s First Eagle Investment Management also made a $12.1 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new NTSP positions are Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management, and Jane Mendillo’s Harvard Management Co.
What do corporate executives and insiders think about NetSpend Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:NTSP)?
Insider buying is most useful when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the last six-month time period, NetSpend Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:NTSP) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and 1 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
Let’s check out hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to NetSpend Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:NTSP). These stocks are Atlas Resource Partners, L.P. (NYSE:ARP), Infoblox Inc (NYSE:BLOX), ExlService Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXLS), Quad/Graphics, Inc. (NYSE:QUAD), and TeleTech Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTEC). This group of stocks belong to the business services industry and their market caps are similar to NTSP’s market cap.
