Is Nielsen Hldg NV (NYSE:NLSN) the right investment to pursue these days? Money managers are becoming less confident. The number of long hedge fund bets decreased by 1 lately.
In the financial world, there are many gauges investors can use to track stocks. Two of the most useful are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best money managers can trounce the broader indices by a healthy margin (see just how much).
Just as important, positive insider trading sentiment is another way to parse down the financial markets. Just as you’d expect, there are plenty of motivations for a corporate insider to sell shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would initiate a purchase. Various academic studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this method if shareholders understand what to do (learn more here).
Now, we’re going to take a glance at the key action surrounding Nielsen Hldg NV (NYSE:NLSN).
How have hedgies been trading Nielsen Hldg NV (NYSE:NLSN)?
At year’s end, a total of 17 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -6% from the third quarter. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings considerably.
Of the funds we track, Eric Mindich’s Eton Park Capital had the most valuable position in Nielsen Hldg NV (NYSE:NLSN), worth close to $245 million, comprising 5.1% of its total 13F portfolio. On Eton Park Capital’s heels is Generation Investment Management, managed by David Blood and Al Gore, which held a $215 million position; 2.3% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other hedge funds with similar optimism include Bain Capital’s Brookside Capital, Daniel S. Och’s OZ Management and J Kevin Kenny Jr’s Emerging Sovereign Group.
Judging by the fact that Nielsen Hldg NV (NYSE:NLSN) has faced a declination in interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there were a few fund managers that decided to sell off their full holdings at the end of the year. Intriguingly, Douglas Dillard Jr. and Raj D. Venkatesan’s Standard Pacific Capital dropped the largest position of the “upper crust” of funds we key on, valued at close to $72 million in stock.. Curtis Schenker and Craig Effron’s fund, Scoggin, also cut its stock, about $16 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 1 funds at the end of the year.
What do corporate executives and insiders think about Nielsen Hldg NV (NYSE:NLSN)?
Insider trading activity, especially when it’s bullish, is best served when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest half-year time period, Nielsen Hldg NV (NYSE:NLSN) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and 15 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
With the results demonstrated by Insider Monkey’s research, retail investors must always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Nielsen Hldg NV (NYSE:NLSN) shareholders fit into this picture quite nicely.
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