Is JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU) going to take off soon? Prominent investors are getting less bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund bets shrunk by 2 recently.
In the financial world, there are dozens of gauges shareholders can use to watch publicly traded companies. A couple of the most under-the-radar are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the elite money managers can outpace the broader indices by a superb margin (see just how much).
Equally as important, positive insider trading activity is another way to parse down the financial markets. Obviously, there are plenty of reasons for an insider to drop shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would initiate a purchase. Various academic studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this strategy if investors know where to look (learn more here).
Keeping this in mind, let’s take a look at the latest action surrounding JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU).
How have hedgies been trading JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU)?
Heading into 2013, a total of 14 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -13% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings considerably.
According to our comprehensive database, Matt Sirovich and Jeremy Mindich’s Scopia Capital had the most valuable position in JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU), worth close to $82 million, accounting for 3.3% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Renaissance Technologies, managed by Jim Simons, which held a $59 million position; 0% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other hedge funds that are bullish include Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management, Claes Fornell’s CSat Investment Advisory and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw.
Due to the fact that JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU) has faced falling interest from the smart money, it’s easy to see that there lies a certain “tier” of hedge funds who were dropping their full holdings in Q4. It’s worth mentioning that David Tepper’s Appaloosa Management LP dropped the largest stake of the “upper crust” of funds we track, worth about $4 million in stock.. Chuck Royce’s fund, Royce & Associates, also dumped its stock, about $2 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 2 funds in Q4.
Insider trading activity in JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU)
Insider purchases made by high-level executives is most useful when the company in focus has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest half-year time period, JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and 3 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
With the returns demonstrated by the aforementioned studies, retail investors should always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU) is an important part of this process.
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