Is Health Care REIT, Inc. (NYSE:HCN) ready to rally soon? Prominent investors are in a pessimistic mood. The number of long hedge fund positions shrunk by 2 lately.
In today’s marketplace, there are many metrics shareholders can use to monitor the equity markets. Two of the most underrated 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 hedge fund managers can outperform their index-focused peers by a very impressive margin (see just how much).
Just as beneficial, bullish insider trading sentiment is a second way to parse down the financial markets. Just as you’d expect, there are lots of stimuli for an insider to sell shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would behave bullishly. Several empirical studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this tactic if piggybackers understand where to look (learn more here).
Keeping this in mind, we’re going to take a gander at the key action surrounding Health Care REIT, Inc. (NYSE:HCN).
What does the smart money think about Health Care REIT, Inc. (NYSE:HCN)?
In preparation for this quarter, a total of 15 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -12% from one quarter earlier. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes substantially.
According to our comprehensive database, D E Shaw, managed by D. E. Shaw, holds the largest position in Health Care REIT, Inc. (NYSE:HCN). D E Shaw has a $89.7 million position in the stock, comprising 0.2% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Jeffrey Furber of AEW Capital Management, with a $85.9 million position; 2.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other peers that are bullish include Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management and Andrew Feldstein and Stephen Siderow’s Blue Mountain Capital.
Seeing as Health Care REIT, Inc. (NYSE:HCN) has faced bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there were a few money managers that decided to sell off their full holdings in Q1. Intriguingly, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies cut the biggest investment of the “upper crust” of funds we watch, valued at close to $58.5 million in stock.. Ben Levine, Andrew Manuel and Stefan Renold’s fund, LMR Partners, also cut its stock, about $0.7 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 2 funds in Q1.
Insider trading activity in Health Care REIT, Inc. (NYSE:HCN)
Insider buying is at its handiest when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest 180-day time period, Health Care REIT, Inc. (NYSE:HCN) has experienced 1 unique insiders buying, and 9 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
Let’s check out hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Health Care REIT, Inc. (NYSE:HCN). These stocks are Healthcare Realty Trust Inc (NYSE:HR), Healthcare Trust Of America Inc (NYSE:HTA), Omega Healthcare Investors Inc (NYSE:OHI), HCP, Inc. (NYSE:HCP), and Ventas, Inc. (NYSE:VTR). This group of stocks are in the reit – healthcare facilities industry and their market caps are closest to HCN’s market cap.
