To many market players, hedge funds are viewed as bloated, old financial vehicles of a period lost to current times. Although there are In excess of 8,000 hedge funds in operation currently, Insider Monkey looks at the masters of this group, close to 525 funds. It is widely held that this group controls the lion’s share of the smart money’s total capital, and by watching their highest quality stock picks, we’ve discovered a few investment strategies that have historically outstripped the S&P 500. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points a 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 beaten the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (find a sample of our picks).
Just as crucial, positive insider trading activity is a second way to look at the marketplace. Obviously, there are lots of motivations for a corporate insider to downsize shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would behave bullishly. Many academic studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this strategy if piggybackers know what to do (learn more here).
What’s more, it’s important to examine the recent info surrounding Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (NYSE:HVT).
How have hedgies been trading Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (NYSE:HVT)?
Heading into Q3, a total of 12 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 20% from the first quarter. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings meaningfully.
As industrywide interest increased, certain bigger names have been driving this bullishness. Renaissance Technologies, managed by Jim Simons, initiated the biggest position in Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (NYSE:HVT). Renaissance Technologies had 7.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates also made a $4.4 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new HVT positions are Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Peter Algert and Kevin Coldiron’s Algert Coldiron Investors, and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw.
Insider trading activity in Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (NYSE:HVT)
Insider buying made by high-level executives is most useful when the company in focus has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest 180-day time period, Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (NYSE:HVT) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
We’ll check out the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (NYSE:HVT). These stocks are Williams-Sonoma, Inc. (NYSE:WSM), Pier 1 Imports, Inc. (NYSE:PIR), Restoration Hardware Holdings Inc (NYSE:RH), Kirkland’s, Inc. (NASDAQ:KIRK), and Gordmans Stores, Inc. (NASDAQ:GMAN). All of these stocks are in the home furnishing stores industry and their market caps resemble HVT’s market cap.
