Is PAREXEL International Corporation (NASDAQ:PRXL) a buy right now? Prominent investors are getting more bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund bets rose by 4 lately.
To most market participants, hedge funds are viewed as unimportant, old investment tools of years past. While there are over 8000 funds trading at present, we look at the bigwigs of this club, around 450 funds. It is widely believed that this group controls most of the hedge fund industry’s total capital, and by keeping an eye on their highest performing equity investments, we have revealed a few investment strategies that have historically outperformed the market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points annually for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve started sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have beaten the S&P 500 index by 25 percentage points in 6.5 month (see all of our picks from August).
Equally as important, positive insider trading sentiment is a second way to break down the marketplace. Just as you’d expect, there are lots of motivations for a bullish insider to sell shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would behave bullishly. Several empirical studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this strategy if piggybackers understand where to look (learn more here).
Keeping this in mind, we’re going to take a glance at the key action surrounding PAREXEL International Corporation (NASDAQ:PRXL).
How are hedge funds trading PAREXEL International Corporation (NASDAQ:PRXL)?
Heading into 2013, a total of 19 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 27% from the previous quarter. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes significantly.
Of the funds we track, Fisher Asset Management, managed by Ken Fisher, holds the largest position in PAREXEL International Corporation (NASDAQ:PRXL). Fisher Asset Management has a $76 million position in the stock, comprising 0.2% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Chuck Royce of Royce & Associates, with a $18 million position; the fund has 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other hedgies that hold long positions include Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies and Andrew Sandler’s Sandler Capital Management.
With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Sandler Capital Management, managed by Andrew Sandler, created the most outsized position in PAREXEL International Corporation (NASDAQ:PRXL). Sandler Capital Management had 6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group also made a $6 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new PRXL positions are David Costen Haley’s HBK Investments, Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management, and David Harding’s Winton Capital Management.
What do corporate executives and insiders think about PAREXEL International Corporation (NASDAQ:PRXL)?
Insider buying is best served when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last six-month time period, PAREXEL International Corporation (NASDAQ:PRXL) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and 13 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
With the results demonstrated by our studies, everyday investors must always monitor hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and PAREXEL International Corporation (NASDAQ:PRXL) applies perfectly to this mantra.
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