Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Joe’s Jeans Inc (JOEZ)

Is Joe’s Jeans Inc (NASDAQ:JOEZ) a buy right now? The best stock pickers are betting on the stock. The number of long hedge fund bets rose by 1 lately.

To most stock holders, hedge funds are assumed to be slow, outdated financial vehicles of years past. While there are greater than 8000 funds with their doors open at the moment, we at Insider Monkey choose to focus on the masters of this club, around 450 funds. It is estimated that this group controls the lion’s share of the hedge fund industry’s total capital, and by watching their top investments, we have brought to light a few investment strategies that have historically outstripped the S&P 500 index. 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 23.3 percentage points in 8 months (see all of our picks from August).

Just as key, positive insider trading activity is another way to parse down the world of equities. There are a variety of stimuli for an upper level exec to drop shares of his or her company, but only one, very obvious reason why they would buy. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this strategy if “monkeys” know where to look (learn more here).

Now, let’s take a glance at the recent action encompassing Joe’s Jeans Inc (NASDAQ:JOEZ).

What does the smart money think about Joe’s Jeans Inc (NASDAQ:JOEZ)?

At the end of the first quarter, a total of 6 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 20% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings meaningfully.

Of the funds we track, Constantinos J. Christofilis’s Archon Capital Management had the largest position in Joe’s Jeans Inc (NASDAQ:JOEZ), worth close to $3 million, comprising 1.6% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Royce & Associates, managed by Chuck Royce, which held a $0.7 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining peers with similar optimism include Peter Algert and Kevin Coldiron’s Algert Coldiron Investors, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies and Gregory Fraser, Rudolph Kluiber, and Timothy Krochuk’s GRT Capital Partners.

Consequently, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. Archon Capital Management, managed by Constantinos J. Christofilis, created the most valuable position in Joe’s Jeans Inc (NASDAQ:JOEZ). Archon Capital Management had 3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ben Levine, Andrew Manuel and Stefan Renold’s LMR Partners also made a $0 million investment in the stock during the quarter.

What do corporate executives and insiders think about Joe’s Jeans Inc (NASDAQ:JOEZ)?

Bullish insider trading is at its handiest when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last six-month time frame, Joe’s Jeans Inc (NASDAQ:JOEZ) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and 2 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

With the results demonstrated by the aforementioned strategies, retail investors should always watch hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Joe’s Jeans Inc (NASDAQ:JOEZ) is no exception.

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