TeleTech Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTEC) investors should pay attention to a decrease in hedge fund sentiment in recent months.
At the moment, there are dozens of gauges market participants can use to watch their holdings. A pair of the most innovative are hedge fund and insider trading activity. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite investment managers can beat the S&P 500 by a superb amount (see just how much).
Just as important, optimistic insider trading sentiment is a second way to break down the investments you’re interested in. Obviously, there are a number of reasons for a bullish insider to sell shares of his or her company, but only one, very simple reason why they would buy. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this strategy if shareholders understand what to do (learn more here).
Now, it’s important to take a gander at the latest action encompassing TeleTech Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTEC).
How have hedgies been trading TeleTech Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTEC)?
At year’s end, a total of 9 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 0% from the previous quarter. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes significantly.
When looking at the hedgies we track, Royce & Associates, managed by Chuck Royce, holds the biggest position in TeleTech Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTEC). Royce & Associates has a $29.8 million position in the stock, comprising 0.1% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by D. E. Shaw of D E Shaw, with a $2.4 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other hedgies that are bullish include Eric Semler’s TCS Capital Management, Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.
Seeing as TeleTech Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTEC) has faced falling interest from the smart money, it’s easy to see that there were a few fund managers who sold off their entire stakes at the end of the year. Intriguingly, Mark Travis’s Intrepid Capital Management sold off the biggest position of all the hedgies we monitor, comprising about $2.5 million in stock., and Israel Englander of Millennium Management was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $2.1 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as total hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).
Insider trading activity in TeleTech Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTEC)
Insider buying is at its handiest when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest six-month time frame, TeleTech Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTEC) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
Let’s also take a look at hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to TeleTech Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTEC). These stocks are Infoblox Inc (NYSE:BLOX), Atlas Resource Partners, L.P. (NYSE:ARP), ExlService Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXLS), Quad/Graphics, Inc. (NYSE:QUAD), and NetSpend Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:NTSP). This group of stocks are in the business services industry and their market caps match TTEC’s market cap.
