Hedge Funds Are Selling Rentrak Corporation (RENT)

Is Rentrak Corporation (NASDAQ:RENT) going to take off soon? The smart money is in a bearish mood. The number of long hedge fund positions went down by 1 lately.

In the financial world, there are dozens of gauges shareholders can use to analyze the equity markets. A couple of the best are hedge fund and insider trading interest. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the elite hedge fund managers can beat their index-focused peers by a very impressive margin (see just how much).

Equally as key, bullish insider trading sentiment is another way to break down the investments you’re interested in. Obviously, there are many incentives for a corporate insider to get rid of shares of his or her company, but only one, very obvious reason why they would initiate a purchase. Various academic studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this strategy if you understand where to look (learn more here).

With these “truths” under our belt, we’re going to take a glance at the latest action encompassing Rentrak Corporation (NASDAQ:RENT).

How have hedgies been trading Rentrak Corporation (NASDAQ:RENT)?

In preparation for this quarter, a total of 6 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -14% from the previous quarter. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings meaningfully.

When looking at the hedgies we track, First Eagle Investment Management, managed by Jean-Marie Eveillard, holds the most valuable position in Rentrak Corporation (NASDAQ:RENT). First Eagle Investment Management has a $9.5 million position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio. On First Eagle Investment Management’s heels is Royce & Associates, managed by Chuck Royce, which held a $8.5 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other hedgies that are bullish include Douglas T. Granat’s Trigran Investments, John Murphy’s Alydar Capital and Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies.

Judging by the fact that Rentrak Corporation (NASDAQ:RENT) has faced bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there were a few fund managers who were dropping their full holdings last quarter. Interestingly, Stuart Peterson’s Artis Capital Management dropped the biggest position of all the hedgies we key on, valued at close to $0.9 million in stock. These transactions are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 1 funds last quarter.

How have insiders been trading Rentrak Corporation (NASDAQ:RENT)?

Insider buying is at its handiest when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past six months. Over the last half-year time period, Rentrak Corporation (NASDAQ:RENT) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s go over hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Rentrak Corporation (NASDAQ:RENT). These stocks are Regal Entertainment Group (NYSE:RGC), Dreamworks Animation Skg Inc (NASDAQ:DWA), RealD (NYSE:RLD), Reading International, Inc. (NASDAQ:RDI), and Carmike Cinemas, Inc. (NASDAQ:CKEC). All of these stocks are in the movie production, theaters industry and their market caps are similar to RENT’s market cap.