Do Hedge Funds and Insiders Love Priceline.com Inc (PCLN)?

Priceline.com Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN) shareholders have witnessed a decrease in enthusiasm from smart money lately.

In today’s marketplace, there are many indicators market participants can use to track publicly traded companies. Some of the most under-the-radar are hedge fund and insider trading movement. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite fund managers can trounce their index-focused peers by a superb amount (see just how much).

Equally as key, bullish insider trading activity is a second way to break down the stock market universe. Obviously, there are many reasons for an executive to cut shares of his or her company, but only one, very simple reason why they would buy. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this tactic if “monkeys” know where to look (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, let’s take a gander at the latest action regarding Priceline.com Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN).

Hedge fund activity in Priceline.com Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN)

At Q1’s end, a total of 67 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -4% from one quarter earlier. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings considerably.

Of the funds we track, Stephen Mandel’s Lone Pine Capital had the largest position in Priceline.com Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN), worth close to $1.2182 billion, accounting for 6.3% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Blue Ridge Capital, managed by John Griffin, which held a $307.6 million position; the fund has 3.9% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other hedgies that are bullish include D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management and Lee Ainslie’s Maverick Capital.

Because Priceline.com Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN) has witnessed bearish sentiment from the smart money, we can see that there lies a certain “tier” of funds that slashed their full holdings in Q1. Interestingly, Robert Boucai’s Newbrook Capital Advisors dropped the largest investment of the “upper crust” of funds we monitor, comprising about $50.3 million in stock.. Israel Englander’s fund, Millennium Management, also dumped its call options., about $36.8 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 3 funds in Q1.

How are insiders trading Priceline.com Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN)?

Bullish insider trading is particularly usable when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the last six-month time frame, Priceline.com Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and 5 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also examine hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Priceline.com Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN). These stocks are MakeMyTrip Limited (NASDAQ:MMYT), Orbitz Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE:OWW), Cedar Fair, L.P. (NYSE:FUN), Six Flags Entertainment Corp (NYSE:SIX), and Carnival plc (ADR) (NYSE:CUK). This group of stocks are the members of the general entertainment industry and their market caps are similar to PCLN’s market cap.