Hedge Funds Are Dumping NTELOS Holdings Corp. (NTLS)

Is NTELOS Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:NTLS) the right pick for your portfolio? The smart money is becoming less confident. The number of long hedge fund positions stayed the same which is a slightly negative development in our experience

In the 21st century investor’s toolkit, there are a multitude of indicators investors can use to monitor the equity markets. A couple of the most underrated are hedge fund and insider trading interest. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite money managers can beat the S&P 500 by a significant margin (see just how much).

Just as integral, bullish insider trading activity is another way to parse down the investments you’re interested in. There are many stimuli for a bullish insider to sell shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would behave bullishly. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this strategy if investors understand what to do (learn more here).

Consequently, let’s take a peek at the latest action encompassing NTELOS Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:NTLS).

What does the smart money think about NTELOS Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:NTLS)?

At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 9 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 0% from the third quarter. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes considerably.

Of the funds we track, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies had the most valuable position in NTELOS Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:NTLS), worth close to $2.1 million, accounting for less than 0.1%% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Ken Griffin of Citadel Investment Group, with a $1.2 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining hedgies with similar optimism include Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors and Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management.

Since NTELOS Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:NTLS) has faced bearish sentiment from the smart money, we can see that there was a specific group of fund managers who were dropping their positions entirely at the end of the year. Interestingly, D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw cut the largest position of the “upper crust” of funds we watch, valued at close to $1 million in stock.. Spencer M. Waxman’s fund, Shannon River Fund Management, also said goodbye to its stock, about $0.4 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

What have insiders been doing with NTELOS Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:NTLS)?

Bullish insider trading is most useful when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the last 180-day time frame, NTELOS Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:NTLS) has seen 6 unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

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

With the returns exhibited by our tactics, retail investors must always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading activity, and NTELOS Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:NTLS) is no exception.

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