Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Nice Systems Ltd (ADR) (NICE)

Is Nice Systems Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:NICE) a buy right now? Money managers are becoming less hopeful. The number of long hedge fund bets fell by 1 lately.

To most investors, hedge funds are seen as unimportant, old financial tools of yesteryear. While there are greater than 8000 funds in operation today, we at Insider Monkey hone in on the leaders of this group, close to 450 funds. Most estimates calculate that this group oversees most of the hedge fund industry’s total asset base, and by monitoring their top investments, we have discovered a number of investment strategies that have historically beaten the market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy beat the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per year for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve began to sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have beaten the S&P 500 index by 23.3 percentage points in 8 months (see all of our picks from August).

Equally as integral, positive insider trading activity is another way to break down the investments you’re interested in. As the old adage goes: there are lots of stimuli for an insider to get rid of shares of his or her company, but only one, very obvious reason why they would initiate a purchase. Several empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this method if “monkeys” understand where to look (learn more here).

Now, it’s important to take a look at the latest action surrounding Nice Systems Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:NICE).

How have hedgies been trading Nice Systems Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:NICE)?

At Q1’s end, a total of 14 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of -7% from the first quarter. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings significantly.

Of the funds we track, Glenn J. Krevlin’s Glenhill Advisors had the most valuable position in Nice Systems Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:NICE), worth close to $27 million, accounting for 3.6% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Josh Resnick of Jericho Capital Asset Management, with a $15.9 million position; 1.7% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other hedgies with similar optimism include Scott Scher & Michael Prober’s Clovis Capital Management, D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw and Eric Bannasch’s Cadian Capital.

Due to the fact that Nice Systems Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:NICE) has experienced falling interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s easy to see that there was a specific group of hedgies that decided to sell off their entire stakes heading into Q2. At the top of the heap, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital cut the largest stake of the 450+ funds we monitor, valued at an estimated $4.2 million in stock.. Brian Ashford-Russell and Tim Woolley’s fund, Polar Capital, also cut its stock, about $4 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 1 funds heading into Q2.

What have insiders been doing with Nice Systems Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:NICE)?

Insider buying is at its handiest when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past six months. Over the last 180-day time frame, Nice Systems Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:NICE) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also examine hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Nice Systems Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:NICE). These stocks are Electronics For Imaging, Inc. (NASDAQ:EFII), Logitech International SA (USA) (NASDAQ:LOGI), Synaptics, Incorporated (NASDAQ:SYNA), Universal Display Corporation (NASDAQ:PANL), and Stratasys, Ltd. (NASDAQ:SSYS). This group of stocks belong to the computer peripherals industry and their market caps match NICE’s market cap.