In the eyes of many market players, hedge funds are viewed as delayed, old investment vehicles of a forgotten age. Although there are In excess of 8,000 hedge funds with their doors open currently, Insider Monkey aim at the moguls of this club, close to 525 funds. It is widely held that this group oversees most of all hedge funds’ total capital, and by paying attention to their best investments, we’ve revealed a few investment strategies that have historically beaten the market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per year for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve began to sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have outclassed the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (see all of our picks from August).
Equally as crucial, positive insider trading sentiment is a second way to look at the investments you’re interested in. Obviously, there are many stimuli for a corporate insider to sell shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would initiate a purchase. Several empirical studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this method if “monkeys” understand where to look (learn more here).
Now that that’s out of the way, it’s important to examine the newest info for Everest Re Group Ltd (NYSE:RE).
What does the smart money think about Everest Re Group Ltd (NYSE:RE)?
At Q2’s end, a total of 22 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 29% from the first quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes significantly.
With a general bullishness amongst the titans, certain bigger names have jumped into Everest Re Group Ltd (NYSE:RE) headfirst. Southeastern Asset Management, managed by Mason Hawkins, initiated the most outsized position in Everest Re Group Ltd (NYSE:RE). Southeastern Asset Management had 556.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group also made a $100.4 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new RE positions are Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management, Greg Poole’s Echo Street Capital Management, and Ken Gray and Steve Walsh’s Bryn Mawr Capital.
How have insiders been trading Everest Re Group Ltd (NYSE:RE)?
Legal insider trading, particularly when it’s bullish, is at its handiest when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest half-year time period, Everest Re Group Ltd (NYSE:RE) has seen 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 Everest Re Group Ltd (NYSE:RE). These stocks are Alleghany Corporation (NYSE:Y), XL Group plc (NYSE:XL), Cna Financial Corp (NYSE:CNA), Arch Capital Group Ltd. (NASDAQ:ACGL), and Cincinnati Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:CINF). This group of stocks are the members of the property & casualty insurance industry and their market caps resemble RE’s market cap.
| Company Name | # of Hedge Funds | # of Insiders Buying | # of Insiders Selling |
| Alleghany Corporation (NYSE:Y) | 23 | 0 | 0 |
| XL Group plc (NYSE:XL) | 27 | 0 | 0 |
| Cna Financial Corp (NYSE:CNA) | 15 | 0 | 0 |
| Arch Capital Group Ltd. (NASDAQ:ACGL) | 12 | 0 | 0 |
| Cincinnati Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:CINF) | 17 | 0 | 0 |
Using the returns explained by the previously mentioned studies, average investors must always keep one eye on hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Everest Re Group Ltd (NYSE:RE) applies perfectly to this mantra.
