Google Inc (GOOG): The Little-Known Indicators You Need to Watch

Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) was in 126 hedge funds’ portfolio at the end of December. GOOG investors should pay attention to a decrease in enthusiasm from smart money of late. There were 143 hedge funds in our database with GOOG positions at the end of the previous quarter.

In today’s marketplace, there are plenty of methods shareholders can use to analyze the equity markets. A duo of the most useful are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite hedge fund managers can trounce the S&P 500 by a healthy margin (see just how much).

Just as important, optimistic insider trading sentiment is another way to break down the marketplace. There are many stimuli for an insider to cut shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would buy. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this strategy if piggybackers know what to do (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, it’s important to take a gander at the key action encompassing Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG).

How are hedge funds trading Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)?

At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 126 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -12% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes meaningfully.

When looking at the hedgies we track, Lone Pine Capital, managed by Stephen Mandel, holds the biggest position in Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG). Lone Pine Capital has a $1.0986 billion position in the stock, comprising 6.9% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Paul Ruddockáand Steve Heinz of Lansdowne Partners, with a $607.4 million position; 10.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other hedgies with similar optimism include William B. Gray’s Orbis Investment Management, and Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management.

Since Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has faced a declination in interest from the smart money, logic holds that there is a sect of hedge funds who were dropping their entire stakes in Q4. It’s worth mentioning that Chase Coleman and Feroz Dewan’s Tiger Global Management LLC dumped the largest position of the “upper crust” of funds we monitor, totaling about $526.6 million in stock.. Panayotis æTakisÆ Sparaggis’s fund, Alkeon Capital Management, also cut its stock, about $353.2 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 17 funds in Q4.

What do corporate executives and insiders think about Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)?

Insider purchases made by high-level executives is best served when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest six-month time frame, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and 10 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s go over hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG). These stocks are Yandex NV (NASDAQ:YNDX), LinkedIn Corp (NYSE:LNKD), Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO), Baidu.com, Inc. (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU), and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB). This group of stocks are in the internet information providers industry and their market caps resemble GOOG’s market cap.

With the results exhibited by the aforementioned tactics, retail investors should always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) applies perfectly to this mantra.

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