Do Hedge Funds and Insiders Love QuinStreet Inc (QNST)?

Is it smart to be bullish on QuinStreet Inc (NASDAQ:QNST)?

To the average investor, there are plenty of methods market participants can use to watch their holdings. A duo of the most underrated are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best money managers can trounce the market by a solid margin (see just how much).

Equally as useful, optimistic insider trading sentiment is a second way to look at the marketplace. As the old adage goes: there are a variety of reasons for an insider to downsize shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would initiate a purchase. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this method if you know where to look (learn more here).

Furthermore, let’s examine the recent info for QuinStreet Inc (NASDAQ:QNST).

How are hedge funds trading QuinStreet Inc (NASDAQ:QNST)?

Heading into Q3, a total of 9 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 29% from the first quarter. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes substantially.

When using filings from the hedgies we track, Royce & Associates, managed by Chuck Royce, holds the largest position in QuinStreet Inc (NASDAQ:QNST). Royce & Associates has a $20.7 million position in the stock, comprising 0.1% of its 13F portfolio. On Royce & Associates’s heels is Coatue Management, managed by Philippe Laffont, which held a $4.5 million position; the fund has 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other hedgies that hold long positions include Gregg J. Powers’s Private Capital Management, D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.

As one would understandably expect, certain bigger names were leading the bulls’ herd. Royce & Associates, managed by Chuck Royce, initiated the biggest position in QuinStreet Inc (NASDAQ:QNST). Royce & Associates had 20.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management also initiated a $4.5 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new QNST positions are Gregg J. Powers’s Private Capital Management, D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.

What have insiders been doing with QuinStreet Inc (NASDAQ:QNST)?

Legal insider trading, particularly when it’s bullish, is most useful when the company in question has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the latest 180-day time period, QuinStreet Inc (NASDAQ:QNST) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

We’ll check out the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to QuinStreet Inc (NASDAQ:QNST). These stocks are ModusLink Global Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ:MLNK), Support.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPRT), Vocus, Inc. (NASDAQ:VOCS), Keynote Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:KEYN), and ClickSoftware Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ:CKSW). All of these stocks are in the internet software & services industry and their market caps are closest to QNST’s market cap.