Is Crown Castle International Corp. (NYSE:CCI) undervalued? The best stock pickers are becoming hopeful. The number of bullish hedge fund bets rose by 3 recently.
According to most shareholders, hedge funds are assumed to be unimportant, old investment vehicles of years past. While there are more than 8000 funds in operation at the moment, we choose to focus on the aristocrats of this club, about 450 funds. Most estimates calculate that this group has its hands on most of the hedge fund industry’s total capital, and by tracking their top investments, we have discovered a number of investment strategies that have historically outstripped the broader indices. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy beat the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points annually 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 trumped the S&P 500 index by 23.3 percentage points in 8 months (see all of our picks from August).
Equally as key, bullish insider trading sentiment is a second way to break down the stock market universe. Obviously, there are a variety of motivations for a corporate insider to get rid of shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would behave bullishly. Many academic studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this strategy if shareholders know where to look (learn more here).
Now, let’s take a peek at the recent action encompassing Crown Castle International Corp. (NYSE:CCI).
How are hedge funds trading Crown Castle International Corp. (NYSE:CCI)?
Heading into Q2, a total of 31 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 11% from the previous quarter. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings significantly.
Of the funds we track, SPO Advisory Corp, managed by John H. Scully, holds the biggest position in Crown Castle International Corp. (NYSE:CCI). SPO Advisory Corp has a $591.4 million position in the stock, comprising 8% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, managed by Michael Larson, which held a $371.4 million position; 2% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other hedgies that hold long positions include Daniel S. Och’s OZ Management, Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global and Lee Ainslie’s Maverick Capital.
With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Glenview Capital, managed by Larry Robbins, initiated the most valuable position in Crown Castle International Corp. (NYSE:CCI). Glenview Capital had 41.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Chase Coleman and Feroz Dewan’s Tiger Global Management LLC also initiated a $41.1 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new CCI positions are Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management, and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.
How are insiders trading Crown Castle International Corp. (NYSE:CCI)?
Insider buying is particularly usable when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last half-year time period, Crown Castle International Corp. (NYSE:CCI) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and 7 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
With the returns exhibited by Insider Monkey’s strategies, retail investors must always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Crown Castle International Corp. (NYSE:CCI) shareholders fit into this picture quite nicely.
