Here is What Hedge Funds Think About GSE Holding Inc (GSE)

GSE Holding Inc (NYSE:GSE) shareholders have witnessed an increase in hedge fund interest recently.

In the financial world, there are tons of metrics shareholders can use to monitor Mr. Market. Some 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 best fund managers can outclass the market by a significant amount (see just how much).

Equally as beneficial, optimistic insider trading sentiment is another way to parse down the investments you’re interested in. As the old adage goes: there are a variety of incentives for an insider to cut shares of his or her company, but only one, very obvious reason why they would behave bullishly. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this method if investors understand where to look (learn more here).

With all of this in mind, we’re going to take a peek at the latest action surrounding GSE Holding Inc (NYSE:GSE).

Hedge fund activity in GSE Holding Inc (NYSE:GSE)

Heading into Q2, a total of 6 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 50% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes significantly.

When looking at the hedgies we track, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates had the largest position in GSE Holding Inc (NYSE:GSE), worth close to $3.2 million, accounting for less than 0.1%% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Prescott Group Capital Management, managed by Phil Frohlich, which held a $1.9 million position; the fund has 0.4% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining hedgies with similar optimism include Ken Gray and Steve Walsh’s Bryn Mawr Capital, Gregory Fraser, Rudolph Kluiber, and Timothy Krochuk’s GRT Capital Partners and Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies.

Now, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Royce & Associates, managed by Chuck Royce, initiated the most valuable position in GSE Holding Inc (NYSE:GSE). Royce & Associates had 3.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Gray and Steve Walsh’s Bryn Mawr Capital also initiated a $0.3 million position during the quarter. The only other fund with a brand new GSE position is D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw.

What have insiders been doing with GSE Holding Inc (NYSE:GSE)?

Insider buying is best served when the company in question has experienced transactions within the past six months. Over the last half-year time frame, GSE Holding Inc (NYSE:GSE) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, 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 GSE Holding Inc (NYSE:GSE). These stocks are Tronox Ltd (NYSE:TROX), Minerals Technologies Inc (NYSE:MTX), Lightbridge Corp (NASDAQ:LTBR), NL Industries, Inc. (NYSE:NL), and Hawkins, Inc. (NASDAQ:HWKN). This group of stocks are the members of the synthetics industry and their market caps resemble GSE’s market cap.

With the results exhibited by our studies, retail investors must always monitor hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and GSE Holding Inc (NYSE:GSE) applies perfectly to this mantra.

Click here to learn why you should track hedge funds