Harris Corporation (HRS): Hedge Funds and Insiders Are Bearish, What Should You Do?

Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS) has experienced a decrease in hedge fund interest recently.

At the moment, there are plenty of indicators market participants can use to watch their holdings. A couple of the most under-the-radar are hedge fund and insider trading movement. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the elite hedge fund managers can trounce their index-focused peers by a superb amount (see just how much).

Equally as important, positive insider trading sentiment is a second way to parse down the stock market universe. Just as you’d expect, there are many motivations for a corporate insider to sell shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would initiate a purchase. Several academic studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this method if shareholders know what to do (learn more here).

With all of this in mind, we’re going to take a glance at the key action surrounding Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS).

Hedge fund activity in Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS)

At the end of the first quarter, a total of 17 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -26% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings considerably.

Of the funds we track, Winton Capital Management, managed by David Harding, holds the most valuable position in Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS). Winton Capital Management has a $24.8 million position in the stock, comprising 0.4% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Gilchrist Berg of Water Street Capital, with a $16.3 million position; 0.5% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other peers that are bullish include Debra Fine’s Fine Capital Partners, Michael Price’s MFP Investors and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.

Due to the fact that Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS) has experienced bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there were a few funds that elected to cut their positions entirely last quarter. At the top of the heap, Thomas E. Claugus’s GMT Capital sold off the biggest position of all the hedgies we monitor, comprising an estimated $12.2 million in stock.. Jim Simons’s fund, Renaissance Technologies, also said goodbye to its stock, about $6 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 6 funds last quarter.

How have insiders been trading Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS)?

Bullish insider trading is most useful when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest six-month time frame, Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and 7 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also examine hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS). These stocks are ViaSat, Inc. (NASDAQ:VSAT), Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK), Alcatel Lucent SA (ADR) (NYSE:ALU), JDS Uniphase Corp (NASDAQ:JDSU), and Echostar Corporation (NASDAQ:SATS). All of these stocks are in the communication equipment industry and their market caps resemble HRS’s market cap.

With the results demonstrated by the aforementioned tactics, retail investors must always watch hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS) applies perfectly to this mantra.

Click here to learn why you should track hedge funds