To many of your peers, hedge funds are seen as useless, old financial tools of an era lost to time. Although there are over 8,000 hedge funds trading today, this site aim at the upper echelon of this group, about 525 funds. It is assumed that this group has its hands on most of all hedge funds’ total assets, and by tracking their highest quality picks, we’ve identified a number of investment strategies that have historically outperformed the S&P 500. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outstripped 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 trumped the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (explore the details and some picks here).
Equally as key, optimistic insider trading activity is another way to analyze the investments you’re interested in. As the old adage goes: there are plenty of reasons for a corporate insider to drop shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would behave bullishly. Various academic studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this tactic if “monkeys” understand where to look (learn more here).
Keeping this in mind, we’re going to study the recent info surrounding Viad Corp (NYSE:VVI).
How are hedge funds trading Viad Corp (NYSE:VVI)?
Heading into Q3, a total of 11 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 10% from the first quarter. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes considerably.
According to our 13F database, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group had the largest position in Viad Corp (NYSE:VVI), worth close to $6 million, comprising less than 0.1%% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Royce & Associates, managed by Chuck Royce, which held a $5.7 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other peers with similar optimism include Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw.
As one would understandably expect, certain bigger names have been driving this bullishness. Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, initiated the most valuable position in Viad Corp (NYSE:VVI). Citadel Investment Group had 6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates also made a $5.7 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new VVI investors: Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw.
How are insiders trading Viad Corp (NYSE:VVI)?
Legal insider trading, particularly when it’s bullish, is particularly usable when the company in question has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the last six-month time frame, Viad Corp (NYSE:VVI) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
We’ll also take a look at the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Viad Corp (NYSE:VVI). These stocks are Examworks Group, Inc. (NYSE:EXAM), COMSCORE, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCOR), Performant Financial Corp (NASDAQ:PFMT), Websense Inc. (NASDAQ:WBSN), and Envestnet Inc (NYSE:ENV). This group of stocks are in the business services industry and their market caps are similar to VVI’s market cap.
| Company Name | # of Hedge Funds | # of Insiders Buying | # of Insiders Selling |
| Examworks Group, Inc. (NYSE:EXAM) | 12 | 0 | 0 |
| COMSCORE, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCOR) | 14 | 0 | 0 |
| Performant Financial Corp (NASDAQ:PFMT) | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| Websense Inc. (NASDAQ:WBSN) | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| Envestnet Inc (NYSE:ENV) | 5 | 0 | 0 |
Using the returns demonstrated by Insider Monkey’s studies, average investors should always track hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Viad Corp (NYSE:VVI) is an important part of this process.
