Ion Geophysical Corp (IO): Hedge Funds Aren’t Crazy About It, Insider Sentiment Unchanged

Is Ion Geophysical Corp (NYSE:IO) a good investment?

To the average investor, there are plenty of gauges market participants can use to track their holdings. A couple of the most innovative are hedge fund and insider trading activity. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the elite fund managers can outclass their index-focused peers by a superb amount (see just how much).

Equally as crucial, optimistic insider trading activity is another way to analyze the investments you’re interested in. Obviously, there are many incentives for an executive to cut shares of his or her company, but only one, very simple reason why they would buy. Several academic studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this method if “monkeys” know what to do (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, let’s examine the recent info about Ion Geophysical Corp (NYSE:IO).

What does the smart money think about Ion Geophysical Corp (NYSE:IO)?

At Q2’s end, a total of 13 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -13% from the previous quarter. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings significantly.

According to our 13F database, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates had the biggest position in Ion Geophysical Corp (NYSE:IO), worth close to $7.1 million, accounting for less than 0.1%% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Highbridge Capital Management, managed by Glenn Russell Dubin, which held a $4.7 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining peers that hold long positions include D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management and Arvind Sanger’s GeoSphere Capital Management.

As Ion Geophysical Corp (NYSE:IO) has faced bearish sentiment from the top-tier hedge fund industry, it’s easy to see that there was a specific group of fund managers that slashed their positions entirely heading into Q2. At the top of the heap, Mariko Gordon’s Daruma Asset Management sold off the biggest investment of the 450+ funds we track, totaling about $39.9 million in stock, and Matthew Tewksbury of Stevens Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $0.4 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 2 funds heading into Q2.

What do corporate executives and insiders think about Ion Geophysical Corp (NYSE:IO)?

Bullish insider trading is particularly usable when the company in question has experienced transactions within the past six months. Over the last half-year time period, Ion Geophysical Corp (NYSE:IO) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

We’ll go over the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Ion Geophysical Corp (NYSE:IO). These stocks are MTS Systems Corporation (NASDAQ:MTSC), Analogic Corporation (NASDAQ:ALOG), Cubic Corporation (NYSE:CUB), ESCO Technologies Inc. (NYSE:ESE), and II-VI, Inc. (NASDAQ:IIVI). This group of stocks are in the scientific & technical instruments industry and their market caps match IO’s market cap.

Using the results demonstrated by our tactics, regular investors must always track hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Ion Geophysical Corp (NYSE:IO) is no exception.

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