Intevac, Inc. (IVAC): Insiders Are Buying, Should You?

Intevac, Inc. (NASDAQ:IVAC) investors should pay attention to a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds in recent months.

To most market participants, hedge funds are assumed to be unimportant, old financial tools of yesteryear. While there are greater than 8000 funds trading at present, we at Insider Monkey choose to focus on the masters of this group, close to 450 funds. It is widely believed that this group oversees most of the smart money’s total asset base, and by keeping an eye on their best stock picks, we have revealed a few investment strategies that have historically beaten Mr. Market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outpaced 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 topped the S&P 500 index by 23.3 percentage points in 8 months (see all of our picks from August).

Equally as important, positive insider trading sentiment is another way to break down the world of equities. Obviously, there are plenty of stimuli for a corporate insider to drop shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would initiate a purchase. Several academic studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this strategy if shareholders know what to do (learn more here).

With all of this in mind, let’s take a look at the latest action encompassing Intevac, Inc. (NASDAQ:IVAC).

What have hedge funds been doing with Intevac, Inc. (NASDAQ:IVAC)?

Heading into Q2, a total of 7 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 0% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings substantially.

When looking at the hedgies we track, Jean-Marie Eveillard’s First Eagle Investment Management had the biggest position in Intevac, Inc. (NASDAQ:IVAC), worth close to $16.8 million, comprising 0.1% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Chuck Royce of Royce & Associates, with a $3.7 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining peers with similar optimism include Gregory Fraser, Rudolph Kluiber, and Timothy Krochuk’s GRT Capital Partners, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies and Ken Gray and Steve Walsh’s Bryn Mawr Capital.

Because Intevac, Inc. (NASDAQ:IVAC) has witnessed declining sentiment from the smart money, it’s easy to see that there is a sect of hedge funds that slashed their positions entirely in Q1. Intriguingly, Ben Levine, Andrew Manuel and Stefan Renold’s LMR Partners said goodbye to the largest stake of the “upper crust” of funds we key on, comprising close to $0.1 million in stock.. Charles Davidson’s fund, Wexford Capital, also cut its stock, about $0.1 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

How are insiders trading Intevac, Inc. (NASDAQ:IVAC)?

Insider purchases made by high-level executives is most useful when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last six-month time period, Intevac, Inc. (NASDAQ:IVAC) has seen 2 unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s check out hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Intevac, Inc. (NASDAQ:IVAC). These stocks are SL Industries, Inc. (NYSEAMEX:SLI), Maxwell Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:MXWL), American Superconductor Corporation (NASDAQ:AMSC), Jinpan International Limited (NASDAQ:JST), and Sparton Corporation (NYSE:SPA). This group of stocks are in the diversified electronics industry and their market caps resemble IVAC’s market cap.

With the returns demonstrated by Insider Monkey’s tactics, retail investors must always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Intevac, Inc. (NASDAQ:IVAC) applies perfectly to this mantra.

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