Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS): Here’s What You Need To Know

Is Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) a healthy stock for your portfolio? Investors who are in the know are reducing their bets on the stock. The number of long hedge fund bets dropped by 2 lately.

At the moment, there are tons of gauges market participants can use to analyze publicly traded companies. A couple of the most under-the-radar are hedge fund and insider trading activity. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best money managers can outpace their index-focused peers by a very impressive margin (see just how much).

Just as beneficial, bullish insider trading activity is another way to parse down the world of equities. There are plenty of reasons for an insider to get rid of shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would behave bullishly. Various empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this tactic if investors know where to look (learn more here).

Consequently, let’s take a look at the latest action surrounding Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS).

How have hedgies been trading Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS)?

Heading into 2013, a total of 37 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of -5% from the third quarter. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings meaningfully.

Of the funds we track, Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global had the largest position in Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS), worth close to $273.2 million, accounting for 1.9% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Columbus Circle Investors, managed by Donald Chiboucis, which held a $109 million position; the fund has 0.9% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other hedgies that hold long positions include Lee Ainslie’s Maverick Capital, Kerr Neilson’s Platinum Asset Management and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.

Due to the fact that Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) has faced declining sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s easy to see that there were a few fund managers that elected to cut their entire stakes at the end of the year. Interestingly, Paul Reeder and Edward Shapiro’s PAR Capital Management sold off the biggest investment of the 450+ funds we key on, worth about $41.7 million in stock.. David Keidan’s fund, Buckingham Capital Management, also cut its stock, about $23.4 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest fell by 2 funds at the end of the year.

Insider trading activity in Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS)

Insider buying is best served when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last half-year time period, Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and 4 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also take a look at hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS). These stocks are MGM Resorts International (NYSE:MGM), Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE:RCL), Wynn Resorts, Limited (NASDAQ:WYNN), Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:MPEL), and Carnival Corporation (NYSE:CCL). This group of stocks are in the resorts & casinos industry and their market caps resemble LVS’s market cap.

With the returns demonstrated by our time-tested strategies, everyday investors should always monitor hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) shareholders fit into this picture quite nicely.

Click here to learn why you should track hedge funds