Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ:INTU) shareholders have witnessed a decrease in hedge fund sentiment recently.
In the financial world, there are tons of gauges shareholders can use to track the equity markets. A pair of the most innovative are hedge fund and insider trading movement. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the top fund managers can beat the S&P 500 by a solid amount (see just how much).
Just as important, bullish insider trading sentiment is a second way to parse down the investments you’re interested in. As the old adage goes: there are lots of motivations for a bullish insider to get rid of shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would behave bullishly. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this tactic if “monkeys” understand where to look (learn more here).
Keeping this in mind, it’s important to take a gander at the latest action surrounding Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ:INTU).
What does the smart money think about Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ:INTU)?
In preparation for this year, a total of 23 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of -23% from the third quarter. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes substantially.
When looking at the hedgies we track, Robert Joseph Caruso’s Select Equity Group had the largest position in Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ:INTU), worth close to $100 million, comprising 1.6% of its total 13F portfolio. On Select Equity Group’s heels is David Blood and Al Gore of Generation Investment Management, with a $98 million position; 0.4% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other hedgies that hold long positions include Panayotis æTakisÆ Sparaggis’s Alkeon Capital Management, Robert B. Gillam’s McKinley Capital Management and Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management.
Seeing as Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ:INTU) has faced falling interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, we can see that there exists a select few hedge funds that elected to cut their full holdings at the end of the year. Interestingly, Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management said goodbye to the largest investment of the “upper crust” of funds we key on, valued at an estimated $137 million in stock.. Jim Simons’s fund, Renaissance Technologies, also dumped its stock, about $39 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 7 funds at the end of the year.
What have insiders been doing with Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ:INTU)?
Insider purchases made by high-level executives is most useful when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the last half-year time period, Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ:INTU) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and 9 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
With the returns exhibited by the aforementioned strategies, retail investors must always monitor hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ:INTU) applies perfectly to this mantra.
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