Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Credicorp Ltd. (USA) (BAP)

Credicorp Ltd. (USA) (NYSE:BAP) has seen a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds recently.

If you’d ask most market participants, hedge funds are perceived as underperforming, outdated financial tools of years past. While there are more than 8000 funds with their doors open at the moment, we at Insider Monkey look at the leaders of this group, close to 450 funds. It is widely believed that this group oversees the majority of the hedge fund industry’s total capital, and by keeping an eye on their highest performing investments, we have found a number of investment strategies that have historically outstripped the S&P 500 index. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per annum for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve started sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have outperformed the S&P 500 index by 23.3 percentage points in 8 months (see the details here).

Just as important, positive insider trading sentiment is another way to parse down the financial markets. Just as you’d expect, there are a number of incentives for an executive to sell shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would initiate a purchase. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this strategy if piggybackers know what to do (learn more here).

With these “truths” under our belt, let’s take a peek at the recent action surrounding Credicorp Ltd. (USA) (NYSE:BAP).

How are hedge funds trading Credicorp Ltd. (USA) (NYSE:BAP)?

In preparation for this quarter, a total of 16 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -20% from the first quarter. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings considerably.

Of the funds we track, Renaissance Technologies, managed by Jim Simons, holds the biggest position in Credicorp Ltd. (USA) (NYSE:BAP). Renaissance Technologies has a $64.7 million position in the stock, comprising 0.2% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Ken Fisher of Fisher Asset Management, with a $51.3 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other hedgies with similar optimism include Robert B. Gillam’s McKinley Capital Management, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital and Richard Driehaus’s Driehaus Capital.

Since Credicorp Ltd. (USA) (NYSE:BAP) has witnessed falling interest from hedge fund managers, it’s easy to see that there were a few funds that slashed their positions entirely at the end of the first quarter. Interestingly, David Costen Haley’s HBK Investments sold off the largest stake of the 450+ funds we track, totaling about $4.3 million in stock.. Matthew Tewksbury’s fund, Stevens Capital Management, also said goodbye to its stock, about $1.2 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as total hedge fund interest fell by 4 funds at the end of the first quarter.

What have insiders been doing with Credicorp Ltd. (USA) (NYSE:BAP)?

Insider purchases made by high-level executives is best served when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last 180-day time frame, Credicorp Ltd. (USA) (NYSE:BAP) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also examine hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Credicorp Ltd. (USA) (NYSE:BAP). These stocks are First Republic Bank (NYSE:FRC), Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (USA) (NYSE:CM), KeyCorp (NYSE:KEY), and SunTrust Banks, Inc. (NYSE:STI). This group of stocks are in the money center banks industry and their market caps match BAP’s market cap.