Capella Education Company (NASDAQ:CPLA) has experienced an increase in hedge fund interest recently.
In today’s marketplace, there are tons of methods market participants can use to watch stocks. A duo of the most under-the-radar are hedge fund and insider trading activity. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best investment managers can outpace the S&P 500 by a solid amount (see just how much).
Equally as important, optimistic insider trading activity is a second way to parse down the marketplace. Obviously, there are lots of motivations for an upper level exec to sell shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would behave bullishly. Many academic studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this method if shareholders understand where to look (learn more here).
Keeping this in mind, it’s important to take a look at the recent action regarding Capella Education Company (NASDAQ:CPLA).
How are hedge funds trading Capella Education Company (NASDAQ:CPLA)?
At year’s end, a total of 13 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 63% from the previous quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings meaningfully.
Of the funds we track, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies had the biggest position in Capella Education Company (NASDAQ:CPLA), worth close to $22.7 million, comprising 0.1% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Ken Griffin of Citadel Investment Group, with a $4.7 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other hedge funds that hold long positions include Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.
Now, key money managers have jumped into Capella Education Company (NASDAQ:CPLA) headfirst. Millennium Management, managed by Israel Englander, created the largest position in Capella Education Company (NASDAQ:CPLA). Millennium Management had 1.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Peter Algert and Kevin Coldiron’s Algert Coldiron Investors also made a $1.2 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new CPLA positions are D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp, and Charles Davidson’s Wexford Capital.
What do corporate executives and insiders think about Capella Education Company (NASDAQ:CPLA)?
Bullish insider trading is best served when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the latest half-year time frame, Capella Education Company (NASDAQ:CPLA) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
Let’s check out hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Capella Education Company (NASDAQ:CPLA). These stocks are Strayer Education Inc (NASDAQ:STRA), Universal Technical Institute, Inc. (NYSE:UTI), ITT Educational Services, Inc. (NYSE:ESI), Education Management Corp (NASDAQ:EDMC), and GP Strategies Corporation (NYSE:GPX). This group of stocks are the members of the education & training services industry and their market caps match CPLA’s market cap.
| Company Name | # of Hedge Funds | # of Insiders Buying | # of Insiders Selling |
| Strayer Education Inc (NASDAQ:STRA) | 7 | 2 | 5 |
| Universal Technical Institute, Inc. (NYSE:UTI) | 10 | 1 | 4 |
| ITT Educational Services, Inc. (NYSE:ESI) | 18 | 0 | 1 |
| Education Management Corp (NASDAQ:EDMC) | 6 | 1 | 0 |
| GP Strategies Corporation (NYSE:GPX) | 8 | 2 | 4 |
With the returns exhibited by our tactics, retail investors must always keep an eye on hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Capella Education Company (NASDAQ:CPLA) is no exception.
