Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (AMP)

Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE:AMP) has seen an increase in hedge fund sentiment recently.

In the financial world, there are a multitude of methods investors can use to monitor stocks. A couple of the most under-the-radar are hedge fund and insider trading interest. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outperform their index-focused peers by a healthy amount (see just how much).

Equally as integral, positive insider trading sentiment is another way to parse down the marketplace. Just as you’d expect, there are lots of incentives for an insider to cut shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would behave bullishly. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this method if you know what to do (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, let’s take a peek at the recent action regarding Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE:AMP).

What have hedge funds been doing with Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE:AMP)?

In preparation for this quarter, a total of 25 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 14% from the previous quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings meaningfully.

According to our comprehensive database, Steven Richman’s East Side Capital (RR Partners) had the largest position in Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE:AMP), worth close to $158.7 million, comprising 7.9% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Cliff Asness of AQR Capital Management, with a $103.9 million position; the fund has 0.4% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other hedge funds with similar optimism include Robert B. Gillam’s McKinley Capital Management, Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.

Consequently, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Columbus Hill Capital Management, managed by Kevin D. Eng, initiated the largest position in Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE:AMP). Columbus Hill Capital Management had 14.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Charles Davidson’s Wexford Capital also initiated a $13.7 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new AMP investors: Patrik Brummer’s Zenit Asset Management AB, Neil Chriss’s Hutchin Hill Capital, and David Costen Haley’s HBK Investments.

What have insiders been doing with Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE:AMP)?

Insider buying is particularly usable when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last six-month time frame, Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE:AMP) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and 12 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 Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE:AMP). These stocks are The Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE:BX), Principal Financial Group Inc (NYSE:PFG), T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:TROW), Invesco Ltd. (NYSE:IVZ), and Northern Trust Corporation (NASDAQ:NTRS). This group of stocks belong to the asset management industry and their market caps resemble AMP’s market cap.

With the results demonstrated by the aforementioned research, retail investors must always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE:AMP) shareholders fit into this picture quite nicely.

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