Do Hedge Funds and Insiders Love Under Armour Inc (UA)?

Is Under Armour Inc (NYSE:UA) a good investment?

To the average investor, there are a multitude of gauges shareholders can use to track publicly traded companies. Two 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 best picks of the best investment managers can beat the broader indices by a superb amount (see just how much).

Just as necessary, bullish insider trading activity is a second way to look at the world of equities. There are a number of reasons for an executive to drop shares of his or her company, but only one, very obvious reason why they would initiate a purchase. Several academic studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this method if “monkeys” understand where to look (learn more here).

Now that that’s out of the way, we’re going to study the recent info for Under Armour Inc (NYSE:UA).

What have hedge funds been doing with Under Armour Inc (NYSE:UA)?

In preparation for the third quarter, a total of 12 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -40% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings meaningfully.

When using filings from the hedgies we track, Charles Clough’s Clough Capital Partners had the most valuable position in Under Armour Inc (NYSE:UA), worth close to $24.2 million, comprising 0.8% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Steven Cohen of SAC Capital Advisors, with a $11.9 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining hedge funds with similar optimism include Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, and Ron Gutfleish’s Elm Ridge Capital.

Judging by the fact that Under Armour Inc (NYSE:UA) has faced declining interest from upper-tier hedge fund managers, logic holds that there were a few fund managers that decided to sell off their positions entirely heading into Q2. At the top of the heap, Alexander Mitchell’s Scopus Asset Management said goodbye to the biggest investment of the 450+ funds we key on, totaling about $103 million in stock. Jim Simons’s fund, Renaissance Technologies, also sold off its stock, about $21.6 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as total hedge fund interest fell by 8 funds heading into Q2.

Insider trading activity in Under Armour Inc (NYSE:UA)

Bullish insider trading is most useful when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past six months. Over the latest six-month time period, Under Armour Inc (NYSE:UA) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, 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 Under Armour Inc (NYSE:UA). These stocks are Carter’s, Inc. (NYSE:CRI), PVH Corp (NYSE:PVH), Lululemon Athletica inc. (NASDAQ:LULU), Hanesbrands Inc. (NYSE:HBI), and Gildan Activewear Inc (USA) (NYSE:GIL). This group of stocks are in the textile – apparel clothing industry and their market caps are similar to UA’s market cap.