Support.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPRT) was in 11 hedge funds’ portfolio at the end of the first quarter of 2013. SPRT investors should pay attention to an increase in enthusiasm from smart money lately. There were 6 hedge funds in our database with SPRT positions at the end of the previous quarter.
If you’d ask most stock holders, hedge funds are assumed to be slow, outdated investment vehicles of yesteryear. While there are greater than 8000 funds in operation at present, we at Insider Monkey hone in on the bigwigs of this group, about 450 funds. It is estimated that this group controls most of all hedge funds’ total asset base, and by monitoring their best investments, we have come up with a few investment strategies that have historically outstripped the broader indices. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points annually 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 trumped the S&P 500 index by 23.3 percentage points in 8 months (see all of our picks from August).
Equally as key, optimistic insider trading activity is another way to parse down the financial markets. Obviously, there are lots of stimuli for an upper level exec to get rid of shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would buy. Several academic studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this method if shareholders know where to look (learn more here).
Now, it’s important to take a gander at the latest action encompassing Support.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPRT).
What does the smart money think about Support.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPRT)?
Heading into Q2, a total of 11 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 83% from the first quarter. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes significantly.
When looking at the hedgies we track, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates had the biggest position in Support.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPRT), worth close to $8.1 million, accounting for less than 0.1%% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Renaissance Technologies, managed by Jim Simons, which held a $1.2 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other peers with similar optimism include Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and Peter Algert and Kevin Coldiron’s Algert Coldiron Investors.
As industrywide interest jumped, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Highbridge Capital Management, managed by Glenn Russell Dubin, assembled the most valuable position in Support.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPRT). Highbridge Capital Management had 0.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Peter Algert and Kevin Coldiron’s Algert Coldiron Investors also made a $0.4 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors, and Neil Chriss’s Hutchin Hill Capital.
Insider trading activity in Support.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPRT)
Insider buying is best served when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest half-year time period, Support.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPRT) has experienced 1 unique insiders purchasing, and 4 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
Let’s go over hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Support.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPRT). These stocks are ModusLink Global Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ:MLNK), Vocus, Inc. (NASDAQ:VOCS), QuinStreet Inc (NASDAQ:QNST), ClickSoftware Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ:CKSW), and Keynote Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:KEYN). This group of stocks belong to the internet software & services industry and their market caps are similar to SPRT’s market cap.
| Company Name | # of Hedge Funds | # of Insiders Buying | # of Insiders Selling |
| ModusLink Global Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ:MLNK) | 6 | 1 | 0 |
| Vocus, Inc. (NASDAQ:VOCS) | 12 | 3 | 4 |
| QuinStreet Inc (NASDAQ:QNST) | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| ClickSoftware Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ:CKSW) | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| Keynote Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:KEYN) | 7 | 0 | 4 |
With the results shown by the aforementioned strategies, everyday investors should always watch hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Support.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPRT) applies perfectly to this mantra.
