Is Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE) a good investment?
To many investors, hedge funds are perceived as overrated, outdated investment vehicles of a forgotten age. Although there are more than 8,000 hedge funds with their doors open today, Insider Monkey focuses on the crème de la crème of this group, about 525 funds. Analysts calculate that this group oversees most of the smart money’s total capital, and by paying attention to their highest performing picks, we’ve discovered a number of investment strategies that have historically beaten the market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy beat the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points annually 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 outpaced the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (find the details here).
Just as key, bullish insider trading activity is a second way to analyze the marketplace. Obviously, there are a variety of motivations for a bullish insider to get rid of shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would initiate a purchase. Several empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this method if “monkeys” understand what to do (learn more here).
Keeping this in mind, let’s examine the latest info for Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE).
Hedge fund activity in Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE)
At Q2’s end, a total of 11 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -27% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes meaningfully.
Due to the fact Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE) has experienced dropping sentiment from the smart money’s best and brightest, we can see that there lies a certain “tier” of fund managers who sold off their positions entirely at the end of the second quarter. At the top of the heap, Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group said goodbye to the biggest stake of the 450+ funds we monitor, totaling about $2.8 million in stock. Scott Burney’s fund, Bluefin Investment Management, also dumped its stock, about $2.5 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 4 funds at the end of the second quarter.
How have insiders been trading Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE)?
Insider buying made by high-level executives is particularly usable when the company in question has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest six-month time frame, Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
We’ll also take a look at the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE). These stocks are ICF International Inc (NASDAQ:ICFI), Accretive Health, Inc. (NYSE:AH), Navigant Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:NCI), Huron Consulting Group (NASDAQ:HURN), and Exponent, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO). This group of stocks belong to the management services industry and their market caps match WAGE’s market cap.
| Company Name | # of Hedge Funds | # of Insiders Buying | # of Insiders Selling |
| ICF International Inc (NASDAQ:ICFI) | 13 | 0 | 0 |
| Accretive Health, Inc. (NYSE:AH) | 16 | 0 | 0 |
| Navigant Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:NCI) | 11 | 0 | 0 |
| Huron Consulting Group (NASDAQ:HURN) | 11 | 0 | 0 |
| Exponent, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO) | 5 | 0 | 0 |
Using the returns demonstrated by Insider Monkey’s studies, average investors should always track hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE) applies perfectly to this mantra.
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