Hedge Funds Are Betting On Comcast Corporation (CMCSA)

Is Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) a buy here? Money managers are betting on the stock. The number of bullish hedge fund bets inched up by 9 recently.

In the eyes of most stock holders, hedge funds are seen as worthless, old investment tools of years past. While there are more than 8000 funds trading today, we at Insider Monkey choose to focus on the crème de la crème of this group, about 450 funds. It is widely believed that this group oversees the majority of the hedge fund industry’s total capital, and by keeping an eye on their best stock picks, we have figured out a number of investment strategies that have historically outstripped Mr. Market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy beat the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per annum for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve started sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have beaten the S&P 500 index by 23.3 percentage points in 8 months (explore the details and some picks here).

Equally as key, optimistic insider trading activity is another way to parse down the financial markets. Just as you’d expect, there are a variety of incentives for an upper level exec to get rid of shares of his or her company, but only one, very obvious reason why they would initiate a purchase. Various academic studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this strategy if piggybackers understand where to look (learn more here).

With all of this in mind, let’s take a peek at the key action surrounding Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA).

How are hedge funds trading Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA)?

At Q1’s end, a total of 55 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 20% from one quarter earlier. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings meaningfully.

Of the funds we track, Paul Ruddock and Steve Heinz’s Lansdowne Partners had the most valuable position in Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA), worth close to $643.8 million, comprising 8.8% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Andreas Halvorsen of Viking Global, with a $629.1 million position; the fund has 3.8% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other hedge funds that are bullish include Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management, John Armitage’s Egerton Capital Limited and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital.

As industrywide interest jumped, specific money managers have jumped into Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) headfirst. Blue Ridge Capital, managed by John Griffin, assembled the most valuable position in Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA). Blue Ridge Capital had 191 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. James Crichton and Adam Weiss’s Scout Capital Management also initiated a $125.9 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Chase Coleman and Feroz Dewan’s Tiger Global Management LLC, John Thaler’s JAT Capital Management, and David Tepper’s Appaloosa Management LP.

How have insiders been trading Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA)?

Bullish insider trading is particularly usable when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past six months. Over the latest half-year time frame, Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and 7 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s go over hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA). These stocks are Liberty Global Inc. (NASDAQ:LBTYA), Discovery Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:DISCA), Time Warner Cable Inc (NYSE:TWC), Viacom, Inc. (NASDAQ:VIAB), and DIRECTV (NASDAQ:DTV). This group of stocks belong to the catv systems industry and their market caps are closest to CMCSA’s market cap.