Hedge Funds Are Selling State Street Corporation (STT)

Is State Street Corporation (NYSE:STT) a sound investment now? The best stock pickers are getting less bullish. The number of long hedge fund bets shrunk by 2 recently.

In today’s marketplace, there are plenty of indicators market participants can use to watch the equity markets. A couple of the most underrated are hedge fund and insider trading activity. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best fund managers can outpace the S&P 500 by a very impressive amount (see just how much).

Equally as beneficial, positive insider trading sentiment is another way to parse down the world of equities. There are plenty of motivations for an upper level exec to downsize shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would behave bullishly. Several empirical studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this tactic if shareholders know where to look (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, we’re going to take a glance at the recent action regarding State Street Corporation (NYSE:STT).

What have hedge funds been doing with State Street Corporation (NYSE:STT)?

At the end of the first quarter, a total of 38 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -5% from one quarter earlier. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes considerably.

According to our comprehensive database, Richard S. Pzena’s Pzena Investment Management had the most valuable position in State Street Corporation (NYSE:STT), worth close to $321.1 million, accounting for 2.2% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, which held a $187.7 million position; 0.3% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining peers that are bullish include Thomas Steyer’s Farallon Capital, Nelson Peltz’s Trian Partners and Donald Yacktman’s Yacktman Asset Management.

Since State Street Corporation (NYSE:STT) has witnessed declining sentiment from hedge fund managers, it’s easy to see that there was a specific group of fund managers that slashed their full holdings in Q1. It’s worth mentioning that Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global cut the biggest position of all the hedgies we key on, totaling about $146.7 million in stock.. Clint Carlson’s fund, Carlson Capital, also sold off its stock, about $68.8 million worth. These moves are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 2 funds in Q1.

How are insiders trading State Street Corporation (NYSE:STT)?

Insider buying is most useful when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the latest six-month time frame, State Street Corporation (NYSE:STT) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and 7 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s go over hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to State Street Corporation (NYSE:STT). These stocks are BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK), T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:TROW), The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (NYSE:BK), The Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE:BX), and Franklin Resources, Inc. (NYSE:BEN). This group of stocks are the members of the asset management industry and their market caps resemble STT’s market cap.

With the returns exhibited by our tactics, retail investors must always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and State Street Corporation (NYSE:STT) shareholders fit into this picture quite nicely.

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