Hedge Funds Are Selling First Solar, Inc. (FSLR)

Is First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR) worth your attention right now? Money managers are turning less bullish. The number of long hedge fund bets were trimmed by 1 recently.

In today’s marketplace, there are tons of indicators market participants can use to watch the equity markets. Two of the most innovative are hedge fund and insider trading activity. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outperform the broader indices by a significant amount (see just how much).

Equally as key, optimistic insider trading sentiment is another way to parse down the stock market universe. As the old adage goes: there are lots of motivations for an upper level exec to sell shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would initiate a purchase. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this method if investors know what to do (learn more here).

With all of this in mind, it’s important to take a gander at the key action encompassing First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR).

How are hedge funds trading First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR)?

In preparation for this quarter, a total of 21 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -5% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings meaningfully.

According to our comprehensive database, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group had the largest position in First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR), worth close to $19.9 million, accounting for less than 0.1%% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Ken Griffin of Citadel Investment Group, with a $13.9 million call position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining hedgies with similar optimism include John A. Levin’s Levin Capital Strategies, Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management and Wojciech Uzdelewicz’s Espalier Global Management.

Seeing as First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR) has experienced bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, logic holds that there were a few funds who sold off their entire stakes in Q1. At the top of the heap, Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management said goodbye to the biggest stake of all the hedgies we monitor, comprising about $60.6 million in stock.. Gilchrist Berg’s fund, Water Street Capital, also cut its call options., about $31.2 million worth. These moves are important to note, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 1 funds in Q1.

How are insiders trading First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR)?

Insider purchases made by high-level executives is at its handiest when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last six-month time period, First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and 2 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s go over hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR). These stocks are SolarCity Corp (NASDAQ:SCTY), Cirrus Logic, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRUS), LSI Corp (NASDAQ:LSI), Silicon Laboratories (NASDAQ:SLAB), and SunPower Corporation (NASDAQ:SPWR). This group of stocks are the members of the semiconductor – specialized industry and their market caps resemble FSLR’s market cap.

With the returns shown by the aforementioned research, retail investors must always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR) is no exception.

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