Here’s What Hedge Funds Think About Changyou.Com Ltd (ADR) (CYOU)

Changyou.Com Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:CYOU) shareholders have witnessed an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds lately.

To the average investor, there are many indicators market participants can use to track Mr. Market. Some of the most under-the-radar are hedge fund and insider trading activity. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can beat the broader indices by a very impressive margin (see just how much).

Just as integral, optimistic insider trading activity is a second way to parse down the marketplace. There are a number of reasons for an upper level exec to drop shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would initiate a purchase. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this tactic if you know what to do (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, it’s important to take a peek at the latest action surrounding Changyou.Com Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:CYOU).

Hedge fund activity in Changyou.Com Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:CYOU)

At the end of the first quarter, a total of 12 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 50% from the first quarter. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings meaningfully.

According to our comprehensive database, Whale Rock Capital Management, managed by Alex Sacerdote , holds the most valuable position in Changyou.Com Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:CYOU). Whale Rock Capital Management has a $22.3 million position in the stock, comprising 5.2% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Ken Griffin of Citadel Investment Group, with a $11.3 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining hedgies with similar optimism include Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, Scott Sinclair and Laurence Chang’s Cascabel Management and Steven Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors.

As one would reasonably expect, specific money managers were breaking ground themselves. Cascabel Management, managed by Scott Sinclair and Laurence Chang, assembled the most valuable position in Changyou.Com Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:CYOU). Cascabel Management had 2.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Robert B. Gillam’s McKinley Capital Management also made a $2.2 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new CYOU investors: Brian Taylor’s Pine River Capital Management, SAC Subsidiary’s CR Intrinsic Investors, and Phil Frohlich’s Prescott Group Capital Management.

Insider trading activity in Changyou.Com Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:CYOU)

Insider purchases made by high-level executives is particularly usable when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the last half-year time period, Changyou.Com Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:CYOU) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also review hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Changyou.Com Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:CYOU). These stocks are Shanda Games Limited(ADR) (NASDAQ:GAME), Konami Corp (ADR) (NYSE:KNM), Rovi Corporation (NASDAQ:ROVI), Cornerstone OnDemand, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSOD), and Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO). This group of stocks are in the multimedia & graphics software industry and their market caps are closest to CYOU’s market cap.