What should a smart ICICI Bank Limited (ADR) (NYSE:IBN) investor do?
To many traders, hedge funds are seen as useless, outdated financial vehicles of a forgotten age. Although there are more than 8,000 hedge funds trading in present day, this site aim at the leaders of this club, about 525 funds. Analysts calculate that this group has its hands on the majority of the hedge fund industry’s total assets, and by monitoring their highest performing picks, we’ve spotted a number of investment strategies that have historically beaten the broader indices. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outpaced 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 beaten the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (find a sample of our picks).
Just as useful, bullish insider trading sentiment is another way to look at the stock market universe. Just as you’d expect, there are plenty of motivations for an upper level exec to downsize shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would behave bullishly. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this strategy if investors know where to look (learn more here).
Keeping this in mind, it’s important to discuss the recent info about ICICI Bank Limited (ADR) (NYSE:IBN).
What have hedge funds been doing with ICICI Bank Limited (ADR) (NYSE:IBN)?
At Q2’s end, a total of 14 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 8% from the first quarter. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially.
Out of the hedge funds we follow, AQR Capital Management, managed by Cliff Asness, holds the largest position in ICICI Bank Limited (ADR) (NYSE:IBN). AQR Capital Management has a $38.3 million position in the stock, comprising 0.1% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, which held a $6.5 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other hedge funds that hold long positions include Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management and Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management.
As one would understandably expect, certain money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. AQR Capital Management, managed by Cliff Asness, created the most outsized position in ICICI Bank Limited (ADR) (NYSE:IBN). AQR Capital Management had 38.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group also initiated a $6.5 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, and Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management.
What do corporate executives and insiders think about ICICI Bank Limited (ADR) (NYSE:IBN)?
Legal insider trading, particularly when it’s bullish, is at its handiest when the company in focus has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest half-year time frame, ICICI Bank Limited (ADR) (NYSE:IBN) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
We’ll check out the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to ICICI Bank Limited (ADR) (NYSE:IBN). These stocks are Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA (ADR) (NYSE:BBVA), Bancolombia S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:CIB), Banco de Chile (ADR) (NYSE:BCH), Deutsche Bank AG (USA) (NYSE:DB), and Shinhan Financial Group Co., Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:SHG). This group of stocks are in the foreign regional banks industry and their market caps resemble IBN’s market cap.
