Do Hedge Funds and Insiders Love The McClatchy Company (MNI)?

The McClatchy Company (NYSE:MNI) investors should be aware of a decrease in support from the world’s most elite money managers of late.

To the average investor, there are dozens of metrics investors can use to track publicly traded companies. A duo of the most innovative are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best money managers can outclass their index-focused peers by a very impressive margin (see just how much).

Just as integral, bullish insider trading activity is another way to parse down the investments you’re interested in. There are a number of incentives for a corporate insider to cut shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would initiate a purchase. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this method if shareholders know what to do (learn more here).

With all of this in mind, let’s take a glance at the latest action surrounding The McClatchy Company (NYSE:MNI).

How are hedge funds trading The McClatchy Company (NYSE:MNI)?

Heading into Q2, a total of 10 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -17% from the first quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings meaningfully.

Of the funds we track, Andrew Feldstein and Stephen Siderow’s Blue Mountain Capital had the biggest position in The McClatchy Company (NYSE:MNI), worth close to $13.6 million, comprising 0.8% of its total 13F portfolio. On Blue Mountain Capital’s heels is Chuck Royce of Royce & Associates, with a $7 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other hedge funds that are bullish include Eric Semler’s TCS Capital Management, Thomas E. Claugus’s GMT Capital and Boaz Weinstein’s Saba Capital.

Since The McClatchy Company (NYSE:MNI) has experienced falling interest from hedge fund managers, logic holds that there is a sect of hedge funds that elected to cut their positions entirely last quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management dumped the largest investment of all the hedgies we monitor, valued at about $0.2 million in stock., and Thomas Bailard of Bailard Inc was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $0.2 million worth. These moves are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 2 funds last quarter.

Insider trading activity in The McClatchy Company (NYSE:MNI)

Insider purchases made by high-level executives is most useful when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the last six-month time period, The McClatchy Company (NYSE:MNI) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and 3 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also review hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to The McClatchy Company (NYSE:MNI). These stocks are The E.W. Scripps Company (NYSE:SSP), A. H. Belo Corporation (NYSE:AHC), Daily Journal Corporation (NASDAQ:DJCO), Media General, Inc. (NYSE:MEG), and Journal Communications, Inc. (NYSE:JRN). This group of stocks are the members of the publishing – newspapers industry and their market caps are closest to MNI’s market cap.

With the results exhibited by the aforementioned time-tested strategies, retail investors must always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and The McClatchy Company (NYSE:MNI) shareholders fit into this picture quite nicely.

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