Hedge Funds Are Selling FTI Consulting, Inc. (FCN)

FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:FCN) investors should be aware of a decrease in hedge fund sentiment in recent months.

In today’s marketplace, there are dozens of methods market participants can use to analyze Mr. Market. A pair of the most useful 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 elite fund managers can outperform the S&P 500 by a healthy margin (see just how much).

Just as integral, positive insider trading sentiment is a second way to parse down the world of equities. Just as you’d expect, there are plenty of reasons for an upper level exec to get rid of shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would buy. Several academic studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this strategy if piggybackers know what to do (learn more here).

With all of this in mind, it’s important to take a look at the key action regarding FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:FCN).

What have hedge funds been doing with FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:FCN)?

Heading into 2013, a total of 8 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of -27% from the third quarter. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes significantly.

Of the funds we track, Timothy S. Peterson’s Regiment Capital had the most valuable position in FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:FCN), worth close to $23.6 million, accounting for 4.4% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Royce & Associates, managed by Chuck Royce, which held a $6.4 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining peers that hold long positions include Wallace Weitz’s Wallace R. Weitz & Co., and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.

Due to the fact that FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:FCN) has faced a declination in interest from hedge fund managers, we can see that there is a sect of money managers who sold off their entire stakes in Q4. It’s worth mentioning that Mark Travis’s Intrepid Capital Management cut the largest stake of the 450+ funds we monitor, worth about $36.8 million in stock.. Jim Simons’s fund, Renaissance Technologies, also sold off its stock, about $2.8 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 3 funds in Q4.

What do corporate executives and insiders think about FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:FCN)?

Bullish insider trading is particularly usable when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest half-year time frame, FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:FCN) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and 1 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s check out hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:FCN). These stocks are Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE), Huron Consulting Group (NASDAQ:HURN), Accretive Health, Inc. (NYSE:AH), The Corporate Executive Board Company (NYSE:CEB), and Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation (NYSE:BAH). This group of stocks are the members of the management services industry and their market caps are similar to FCN’s market cap.

With the results shown by Insider Monkey’s tactics, retail investors must always watch hedge fund and insider trading activity, and FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:FCN) is an important part of this process.

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