Is STAAR Surgical Company (NASDAQ:STAA) ready to raly soon? The best stock pickers are in a bearish mood. The number of bullish hedge fund positions stayed the same which is a slightly negative development in our experience
In today’s marketplace, there are dozens of metrics investors can use to analyze their holdings. A couple of the most under-the-radar are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best money managers can outclass the market by a very impressive margin (see just how much).
Just as important, bullish insider trading sentiment is another way to parse down the financial markets. There are lots of motivations for an insider to downsize shares of his or her company, but only one, very simple reason why they would behave bullishly. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this method if piggybackers understand what to do (learn more here).
Keeping this in mind, let’s take a glance at the latest action encompassing STAAR Surgical Company (NASDAQ:STAA).
What does the smart money think about STAAR Surgical Company (NASDAQ:STAA)?
In preparation for this year, a total of 6 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 0% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings substantially.
According to our comprehensive database, William Leland Edwards’s Palo Alto Investors had the most valuable position in STAAR Surgical Company (NASDAQ:STAA), worth close to $21.7 million, comprising 2.5% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Driehaus Capital, managed by Richard Driehaus, which held a $1.9 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other hedgies that hold long positions include Phil Frohlich’s Prescott Group Capital Management, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.
Because STAAR Surgical Company (NASDAQ:STAA) has witnessed bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s easy to see that there is a sect of money managers that slashed their entire stakes in Q4. Intriguingly, Richard Schimel’s Diamondback Capital said goodbye to the biggest position of all the hedgies we monitor, worth close to $1.3 million in stock. These moves are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).
What do corporate executives and insiders think about STAAR Surgical Company (NASDAQ:STAA)?
Insider purchases made by high-level executives is at its handiest when the company in question has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest half-year time period, STAAR Surgical Company (NASDAQ:STAA) has seen 2 unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
Let’s also review hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to STAAR Surgical Company (NASDAQ:STAA). These stocks are Mesa Laboratories, Inc. (NASDAQ:MLAB), Rochester Medical Corporation (NASDAQ:ROCM), Utah Medical Products, Inc. (NASDAQ:UTMD), Unilife Corp (NASDAQ:UNIS), and Alphatec Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:ATEC). This group of stocks belong to the medical instruments & supplies industry and their market caps resemble STAA’s market cap.
