Do Hedge Funds and Insiders Love Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NOK)?

Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK) was in 14 hedge funds’ portfolio at the end of March. NOK investors should be aware of a decrease in hedge fund interest of late. There were 14 hedge funds in our database with NOK holdings at the end of the previous quarter.

In the financial world, there are many methods shareholders can use to analyze their holdings. Some of the most under-the-radar 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 outpace the market by a very impressive amount (see just how much).

Equally as integral, positive insider trading sentiment is a second way to parse down the financial markets. Just as you’d expect, there are many reasons for a bullish insider to drop shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would behave bullishly. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this tactic if shareholders know what to do (learn more here).

With these “truths” under our belt, let’s take a glance at the key action surrounding Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK).

How have hedgies been trading Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK)?

At Q1’s end, a total of 14 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 0% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings significantly.

According to our comprehensive database, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital had the largest position in Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK), worth close to $146.4 million, accounting for 1.2% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies, with a $36.2 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining hedgies that are bullish include Francis Chou’s Chou Associates Management, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and Michael Hintze’s CQS Cayman LP.

Judging by the fact that Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK) has witnessed falling interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s safe to say that there lies a certain “tier” of hedge funds who were dropping their full holdings heading into Q2. Interestingly, Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management cut the biggest investment of all the hedgies we track, totaling an estimated $15.4 million in stock.. Steven Cohen’s fund, SAC Capital Advisors, also dumped its stock, about $6.6 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

Insider trading activity in Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK)

Insider purchases made by high-level executives is most useful when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past six months. Over the latest half-year time frame, Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also review hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK). These stocks are JDS Uniphase Corp (NASDAQ:JDSU), Echostar Corporation (NASDAQ:SATS), Ericsson (ADR) (NASDAQ:ERIC), Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS), and Motorola Solutions Inc (NYSE:MSI). This group of stocks belong to the communication equipment industry and their market caps match NOK’s market cap.

With the results demonstrated by the aforementioned strategies, retail investors must always watch hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK) is no exception.

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