Is Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD) the right investment to pursue these days? The smart money is taking a bearish view. The number of long hedge fund positions shrunk by 1 lately.
At the moment, there are tons of gauges market participants can use to monitor stocks. Some of the most innovative are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite investment managers can trounce their index-focused peers by a very impressive margin (see just how much).
Just as key, bullish insider trading sentiment is a second way to break down the investments you’re interested in. Obviously, there are lots of incentives for a bullish insider to drop shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would behave bullishly. Many academic studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this strategy if investors understand where to look (learn more here).
Consequently, we’re going to take a peek at the recent action encompassing Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD).
What have hedge funds been doing with Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD)?
In preparation for this year, a total of 16 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -6% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings substantially.
When looking at the hedgies we track, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital had the largest position in Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD), worth close to $23 million, accounting for 0.1% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Chuck Royce of Royce & Associates, with a $9 million position; the fund has 0% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other hedgies that are bullish include Scott Burney’s Bluefin Investment Management, John Fichthorn’s Dialectic Capital Management and Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies.
Because Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD) has experienced falling interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s easy to see that there lies a certain “tier” of funds that decided to sell off their full holdings last quarter. Intriguingly, Robert Rodriguez and Steven Romick’s First Pacific Advisors LLC cut the biggest stake of the 450+ funds we watch, valued at close to $24 million in stock.. Ken Brodkowitz and Mike Vermut’s fund, Newland Capital, also dumped its stock, about $3 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 1 funds last quarter.
What have insiders been doing with Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD)?
Insider buying is at its handiest when the company in focus has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last half-year time period, Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
With the returns demonstrated by the aforementioned strategies, retail investors should always keep an eye on hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD) applies perfectly to this mantra.
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