Haemonetics Corporation (HAE): Hedge Funds Are Bearish and Insiders Are Bullish, What Should You Do?

Is Haemonetics Corporation (NYSE:HAE) a buy right now? Money managers are taking a pessimistic view. The number of long hedge fund positions went down by 1 lately.

At the moment, there are a multitude of methods market participants can use to monitor stocks. Two of the most underrated are hedge fund and insider trading activity. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite fund managers can outclass the broader indices by a healthy margin (see just how much).

Equally as important, optimistic insider trading sentiment is a second way to parse down the investments you’re interested in. There are many stimuli for a corporate insider to downsize shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would behave bullishly. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this method if piggybackers understand what to do (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, let’s take a look at the key action surrounding Haemonetics Corporation (NYSE:HAE).

How have hedgies been trading Haemonetics Corporation (NYSE:HAE)?

At Q1’s end, a total of 11 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -8% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes significantly.

When looking at the hedgies we track, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management had the largest position in Haemonetics Corporation (NYSE:HAE), worth close to $8.8 million, comprising less than 0.1%% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Ken Fisher of Fisher Asset Management, with a $7 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other hedge funds that hold long positions include Bill Miller’s Legg Mason Capital Management, Jeffrey Vinik’s Vinik Asset Management and Martin Whitman’s Third Avenue Management.

Seeing as Haemonetics Corporation (NYSE:HAE) has witnessed declining sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s easy to see that there lies a certain “tier” of money managers who were dropping their entire stakes at the end of the first quarter. At the top of the heap, Sean Cullinan’s Point State Capital sold off the largest investment of all the hedgies we watch, valued at close to $4.1 million in stock.. Drew Cupps’s fund, Cupps Capital Management, also said goodbye to its stock, about $3.9 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as total hedge fund interest fell by 1 funds at the end of the first quarter.

What have insiders been doing with Haemonetics Corporation (NYSE:HAE)?

Bullish insider trading is most useful when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last half-year time frame, Haemonetics Corporation (NYSE:HAE) has experienced 7 unique insiders buying, and 10 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also take a look at hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Haemonetics Corporation (NYSE:HAE). These stocks are Insulet Corporation (NASDAQ:PODD), HeartWare International Inc (NASDAQ:HTWR), West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. (NYSE:WST), Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:HRC), and Thoratec Corporation (NASDAQ:THOR). This group of stocks are the members of the medical instruments & supplies industry and their market caps resemble HAE’s market cap.

With the results shown by Insider Monkey’s studies, everyday investors must always keep an eye on hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Haemonetics Corporation (NYSE:HAE) applies perfectly to this mantra.

Click here to learn why you should track hedge funds