Here is What Hedge Funds Think About The Hackett Group, Inc. (HCKT)

The Hackett Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HCKT) investors should pay attention to an increase in enthusiasm from smart money recently.

If you’d ask most investors, hedge funds are assumed to be unimportant, old investment tools of yesteryear. While there are more than 8000 funds with their doors open at the moment, we choose to focus on the upper echelon of this group, close to 450 funds. It is estimated that this group controls most of all hedge funds’ total capital, and by watching their highest performing stock picks, we have found a number of investment strategies that have historically outstripped the broader indices. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outstripped 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 (check out a sample of our picks).

Equally as key, optimistic insider trading sentiment is another way to parse down the stock market universe. There are plenty of stimuli for an upper level exec to cut shares of his or her company, but only one, very simple reason why they would behave bullishly. Various academic studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this strategy if you understand where to look (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, let’s take a peek at the recent action encompassing The Hackett Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HCKT).

What does the smart money think about The Hackett Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HCKT)?

In preparation for this quarter, a total of 7 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 40% from the first quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially.

When looking at the hedgies we track, Royce & Associates, managed by Chuck Royce, holds the largest position in The Hackett Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HCKT). Royce & Associates has a $3 million position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies, with a $1.8 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other hedgies that hold long positions include Robert B. Gillam’s McKinley Capital Management, Peter Algert and Kevin Coldiron’s Algert Coldiron Investors and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.

As one would reasonably expect, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. Algert Coldiron Investors, managed by Peter Algert and Kevin Coldiron, established the most outsized position in The Hackett Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HCKT). Algert Coldiron Investors had 0.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Israel Englander’s Millennium Management also initiated a $0.1 million position during the quarter.

How have insiders been trading The Hackett Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HCKT)?

Bullish insider trading is best served when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest half-year time frame, The Hackett Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HCKT) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and 1 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also take a look at hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to The Hackett Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HCKT). These stocks are Standard Parking Corporation (NASDAQ:STAN), Information Services Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:III), CRA International, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRAI), Harris Interactive Inc. (NASDAQ:HPOL), and Hill International Inc (NYSE:HIL). This group of stocks are the members of the management services industry and their market caps are closest to HCKT’s market cap.