Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS) shareholders have witnessed an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds recently.
Just as beneficial, positive insider trading activity is another way to break down the world of equities. Obviously, there are a variety of stimuli for an executive to drop shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would buy. Various empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this method if you understand what to do (learn more here).
Keeping this in mind, it’s important to take a peek at the key action encompassing Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS).
How have hedgies been trading Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS)?
At Q1’s end, a total of 46 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 18% from the first quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings considerably.
Of the funds we track, Donald Chiboucis’s Columbus Circle Investors had the largest position in Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS), worth close to $273.9 million, accounting for 2.1% of its total 13F portfolio. On Columbus Circle Investors’s heels is Daniel S. Och of OZ Management, with a $174.3 million position; 0.6% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other hedgies that hold long positions include Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management, Rob Citrone’s Discovery Capital Management and Doug Silverman and Alexander Klabin’s Senator Investment Group.
As industrywide interest jumped, some big names have been driving this bullishness. Senator Investment Group, managed by Doug Silverman and Alexander Klabin, assembled the most valuable position in Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS). Senator Investment Group had 101.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Heebner’s Capital Growth Management also made a $43.5 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new DFS investors: Brian Taylor’s Pine River Capital Management, Andrew Sandler’s Sandler Capital Management, and Clint Carlson’s Carlson Capital.
How have insiders been trading Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS)?
Insider buying is particularly usable when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last 180-day time period, Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and 7 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 Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS). These stocks are The Western Union Company (NYSE:WU), CIT Group Inc. (NYSE:CIT), SLM Corp (NASDAQ:SLM) and Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE:COF). This group of stocks are in the credit services industry and their market caps are closest to DFS’s market cap.