Hedge Funds Are Crazy About PROS Holdings, Inc. (PRO)

PROS Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:PRO) was in 10 hedge funds’ portfolio at the end of March. PRO has experienced an increase in enthusiasm from smart money lately. There were 6 hedge funds in our database with PRO holdings at the end of the previous quarter.

To the average investor, there are dozens of gauges shareholders can use to monitor Mr. Market. Some of the most useful are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the top money managers can outclass their index-focused peers by a healthy margin (see just how much).

Equally as key, positive insider trading activity is a second way to parse down the world of equities. Obviously, there are plenty of motivations for an executive to get rid of shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would buy. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this method if piggybackers know where to look (learn more here).

With all of this in mind, it’s important to take a look at the key action surrounding PROS Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:PRO).

What have hedge funds been doing with PROS Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:PRO)?

At the end of the first quarter, a total of 10 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 67% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings meaningfully.

When looking at the hedgies we track, Polar Capital, managed by Brian Ashford-Russell and Tim Woolley, holds the most valuable position in PROS Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:PRO). Polar Capital has a $7.9 million position in the stock, comprising 0.3% of its 13F portfolio. On Polar Capital’s heels is Richard Driehaus of Driehaus Capital, with a $3.8 million position; the fund has 0.2% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other peers that hold long positions include Constantinos J. Christofilis’s Archon Capital Management, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.

As aggregate interest increased, key money managers have jumped into PROS Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:PRO) headfirst. Driehaus Capital, managed by Richard Driehaus, created the most outsized position in PROS Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:PRO). Driehaus Capital had 3.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group also initiated a $0.9 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new PRO investors: Steven Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.

What have insiders been doing with PROS Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:PRO)?

Insider trading activity, especially when it’s bullish, is particularly usable when the company in question has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last half-year time period, PROS Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:PRO) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and 3 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also review hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to PROS Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:PRO). These stocks are FleetMatics Group PLC (NYSE:FLTX), Lifelock Inc (NYSE:LOCK), Demandware Inc (NYSE:DWRE), BroadSoft Inc (NASDAQ:BSFT), and AVG Technologies NV (NYSE:AVG). This group of stocks are in the application software industry and their market caps resemble PRO’s market cap.