Hedge Funds Are Buying Ixia (XXIA)

Is Ixia (NASDAQ:XXIA) worth your attention right now? Money managers are taking a bullish view. The number of long hedge fund positions rose by 3 lately.

At the moment, there are many gauges market participants can use to analyze Mr. Market. Some of the most innovative are hedge fund and insider trading movement. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top investment managers can outclass the broader indices by a significant amount (see just how much).

Equally as key, optimistic insider trading activity is a second way to parse down the investments you’re interested in. Obviously, there are lots of incentives for an executive to downsize shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would behave bullishly. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this method if “monkeys” know what to do (learn more here).

With these “truths” under our belt, it’s important to take a peek at the recent action surrounding Ixia (NASDAQ:XXIA).

How have hedgies been trading Ixia (NASDAQ:XXIA)?

Heading into Q2, a total of 10 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 43% from the first quarter.

As aggregate interest increased, specific money managers were breaking ground themselves. Columbus Circle Investors, managed by Donald Chiboucis, assembled the most valuable position in Ixia (NASDAQ:XXIA). Columbus Circle Investors had 33.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital also made a $5.1 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new XXIA positions are Richard Driehaus’s Driehaus Capital, Steven Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors, and Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management.

How have insiders been trading Ixia (NASDAQ:XXIA)?

Insider buying is best served when the company in question has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest six-month time period, Ixia (NASDAQ:XXIA) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and 11 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also review hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Ixia (NASDAQ:XXIA). These stocks are Coherent, Inc. (NASDAQ:COHR), Itron, Inc. (NASDAQ:ITRI), Cognex Corporation (NASDAQ:CGNX), Geospace Technologies Corp (NASDAQ:GEOS), and Curtiss-Wright Corp. (NYSE:CW). This group of stocks are in the scientific & technical instruments industry and their market caps resemble XXIA’s market cap.

With the returns demonstrated by the aforementioned tactics, retail investors must always watch hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Ixia (NASDAQ:XXIA) is an important part of this process.

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