Is Teradyne, Inc. (NYSE:TER) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds?

Is Teradyne, Inc. (NYSE:TER) going to take off soon? Money managers are getting less bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund bets shrunk by 1 lately.

To the average investor, there are many methods investors can use to track the equity markets. A pair of the most underrated 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 hedge fund managers can outpace the market by a superb margin (see just how much).

Just as key, positive insider trading activity is a second way to break down the financial markets. Obviously, there are plenty of stimuli for an insider to sell shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would behave bullishly. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this tactic if you know what to do (learn more here).

With all of this in mind, it’s important to take a look at the key action surrounding Teradyne, Inc. (NYSE:TER).

Hedge fund activity in Teradyne, Inc. (NYSE:TER)

Heading into 2013, a total of 26 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of -4% from the third quarter. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes considerably.

When looking at the hedgies we track, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates had the most valuable position in Teradyne, Inc. (NYSE:TER), worth close to $342 million billion, accounting for 1.1% of its total 13F portfolio. On Royce & Associates’s heels is Alkeon Capital Management, managed by Panayotis æTakisÆ Sparaggis, which held a $106 million position; 0.9% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other peers with similar optimism include Douglas Dillard Jr. and Raj D. Venkatesan’s Standard Pacific Capital, Thomas E. Claugus’s GMT Capital and Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management.

Due to the fact that Teradyne, Inc. (NYSE:TER) has faced declining sentiment from the smart money, we can see that there were a few fund managers that slashed their positions entirely heading into 2013. Intriguingly, Eric Bannasch’s Cadian Capital said goodbye to the biggest investment of all the hedgies we watch, worth close to $16 million in stock.. Brian Ashford-Russell and Tim Woolley’s fund, Polar Capital, also dumped its stock, about $5 million worth. These moves are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 1 funds heading into 2013.

How are insiders trading Teradyne, Inc. (NYSE:TER)?

Bullish insider trading is particularly usable when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest six-month time frame, Teradyne, Inc. (NYSE:TER) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and 5 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

With the returns shown by the aforementioned tactics, retail investors should always monitor hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Teradyne, Inc. (NYSE:TER) is an important part of this process.

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