Hedge Funds Are Crazy About Anaren, Inc. (ANEN)

Anaren, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANEN) has experienced an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers of late.

According to most market participants, hedge funds are assumed to be unimportant, old financial vehicles of years past. While there are greater than 8000 funds with their doors open today, we at Insider Monkey choose to focus on the bigwigs of this club, close to 450 funds. It is estimated that this group has its hands on the majority of the hedge fund industry’s total asset base, and by tracking their highest performing stock picks, we have determined a few investment strategies that have historically outperformed Mr. Market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per year for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve began to sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have topped the S&P 500 index by 23.3 percentage points in 8 months (see the details here).

Equally as key, bullish insider trading sentiment is a second way to parse down the marketplace. Obviously, there are lots of reasons for an insider to get rid of shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would initiate a purchase. Several academic studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this strategy if “monkeys” understand where to look (learn more here).

Consequently, let’s take a gander at the key action surrounding Anaren, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANEN).

How are hedge funds trading Anaren, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANEN)?

In preparation for this quarter, a total of 7 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 40% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings considerably.

When looking at the hedgies we track, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates had the most valuable position in Anaren, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANEN), worth close to $18.6 million, comprising 0.1% of its total 13F portfolio. On Royce & Associates’s heels is Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies, with a $4.1 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining peers that hold long positions include John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors, D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key money managers have been driving this bullishness. Bryn Mawr Capital, managed by Ken Gray and Steve Walsh, assembled the most valuable position in Anaren, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANEN). Bryn Mawr Capital had 0.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management also made a $0.2 million investment in the stock during the quarter.

How have insiders been trading Anaren, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANEN)?

Bullish insider trading is at its handiest when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest six-month time frame, Anaren, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANEN) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and 1 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also review hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Anaren, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANEN). These stocks are UTStarcom Holdings Corp (NASDAQ:UTSI), Telular Corporation (NASDAQ:WRLS), USA Mobility Inc (NASDAQ:USMO), Maxcom Telecomunic S.A.B. de C.V. (ADR) (NYSE:MXT), and NTELOS Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:NTLS). This group of stocks belong to the wireless communications industry and their market caps are similar to ANEN’s market cap.