Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Exide Technologies (XIDE): Electro Scientific Industries, Inc. (ESIO), Skullcandy Inc (SKUL)

Exide Technologies (NASDAQ:XIDE) was in 12 hedge funds’ portfolio at the end of December. XIDE has experienced a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds lately. There were 12 hedge funds in our database with XIDE positions at the end of the previous quarter.

To most shareholders, hedge funds are seen as slow, old investment tools of yesteryear. While there are over 8000 funds in operation today, we choose to focus on the crème de la crème of this club, around 450 funds. Most estimates calculate that this group oversees most of the hedge fund industry’s total capital, and by paying attention to their top equity investments, we have identified a few investment strategies that have historically outstripped the market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points annually 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 25 percentage points in 6.5 month (see all of our picks from August).

Equally as integral, optimistic insider trading activity is another way to break down the investments you’re interested in. Obviously, there are many incentives for an insider to downsize shares of his or her company, but only one, very obvious reason why they would buy. Several academic studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this method if “monkeys” understand what to do (learn more here).

With these “truths” under our belt, it’s important to take a look at the recent action regarding Exide Technologies (NASDAQ:XIDE).

What have hedge funds been doing with Exide Technologies (NASDAQ:XIDE)?

In preparation for this year, a total of 12 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 0% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings considerably.

Of the funds we track, Jeffrey Gendell’s Tontine Asset Management had the most valuable position in Exide Technologies (NASDAQ:XIDE), worth close to $23 million, comprising 5.8% of its total 13F portfolio. On Tontine Asset Management’s heels is Archer Capital Management, managed by Eric Edidin and Josh Lobel, which held a $10 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other hedgies with similar optimism include Paul Singer’s Elliott Management, Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management and Jon Bauer’s Contrarian Capital.

Seeing as Exide Technologies (NASDAQ:XIDE) has faced bearish sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, we can see that there exists a select few fund managers that slashed their full holdings in Q4. It’s worth mentioning that Jacob Gottlieb’s Visium Asset Management said goodbye to the largest investment of the 450+ funds we key on, totaling about $1 million in stock., and Joel Greenblatt of Gotham Asset Management was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $0 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as total hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

How have insiders been trading Exide Technologies (NASDAQ:XIDE)?

Insider purchases made by high-level executives is particularly usable when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest half-year time frame, Exide Technologies (NASDAQ:XIDE) has seen 1 unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s go over hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Exide Technologies (NASDAQ:XIDE). These stocks are Electro Scientific Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ESIO), Skullcandy Inc (NASDAQ:SKUL), Capstone Turbine Corporation (NASDAQ:CPST), LSI Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:LYTS), and Coleman Cable, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCIX). This group of stocks belong to the industrial electrical equipment industry and their market caps are similar to XIDE’s market cap.

With the returns demonstrated by the aforementioned tactics, everyday investors must always keep an eye on hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Exide Technologies (NASDAQ:XIDE) is no exception.

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Insider Monkey’s small-cap strategy returned 37% between September 2012 and March 2013 versus 12.9% for the S&P 500 index. Try it now by clicking the link above.