Is Aruba Networks, Inc. (ARUN) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds?

Aruba Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARUN) investors should be aware of an increase in hedge fund interest recently.

To the average investor, there are many methods shareholders can use to watch publicly traded companies. A couple of the most innovative are hedge fund and insider trading interest. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top hedge fund managers can trounce the S&P 500 by a superb amount (see just how much).

Just as key, optimistic insider trading sentiment is a second way to break down the world of equities. Just as you’d expect, there are plenty of stimuli for an executive to downsize shares of his or her company, but only one, very obvious reason why they would initiate a purchase. Several academic studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this strategy if “monkeys” know what to do (learn more here).

With all of this in mind, we’re going to take a gander at the latest action encompassing Aruba Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARUN).

Hedge fund activity in Aruba Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARUN)

At Q1’s end, a total of 23 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 28% from the previous quarter. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes considerably.

Of the funds we track, Donald Chiboucis’s Columbus Circle Investors had the biggest position in Aruba Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARUN), worth close to $95.4 million, accounting for 0.7% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Alkeon Capital Management, managed by Panayotis Takis Sparaggis, which held a $27.2 million position; 0.6% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other hedge funds that hold long positions include Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, Paul Reeder and Edward Shapiro’s PAR Capital Management and Josh Resnick’s Jericho Capital Asset Management.

As industrywide interest jumped, key hedge funds have jumped into Aruba Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARUN) headfirst. PAR Capital Management, managed by Paul Reeder and Edward Shapiro, initiated the biggest position in Aruba Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARUN). PAR Capital Management had 24.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Josh Resnick’s Jericho Capital Asset Management also made a $13.9 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new ARUN positions are Van Schreiber’s Bennett Lawrence Management, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, and Bruce Kovner’s Caxton Associates LP.

Insider trading activity in Aruba Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARUN)

Insider trading activity, especially when it’s bullish, is particularly usable when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest half-year time period, Aruba Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARUN) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and 7 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s check out hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Aruba Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARUN). These stocks are Super Micro Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ:SMCI), Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR), Finisar Corporation (NASDAQ:FNSR), Palo Alto Networks Inc (NYSE:PANW), and Riverbed Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:RVBD). This group of stocks are in the networking & communication devices industry and their market caps are similar to ARUN’s market cap.