LG Display Co Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:LPL), Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI): This Metric Says You Are Smart to Buy Molex Incorporated (NASDAQ:MOLX)

Is Molex Incorporated (NASDAQ:MOLX) a splendid investment right now? Prominent investors are taking an optimistic view. The number of long hedge fund bets went up by 6 lately.

In the financial world, there are tons of metrics shareholders can use to watch publicly traded companies. A duo of the most innovative are hedge fund and insider trading movement. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite investment managers can trounce the broader indices by a healthy amount (see just how much).

Just as important, optimistic insider trading sentiment is another way to break down the financial markets. Just as you’d expect, there are lots of motivations for an insider to drop shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would behave bullishly. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this tactic if “monkeys” know what to do (learn more here).

With these “truths” under our belt, let’s take a peek at the recent action surrounding Molex Incorporated (NASDAQ:MOLX).

What does the smart money think about Molex Incorporated (NASDAQ:MOLX)?

At year’s end, a total of 16 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 60% from the third quarter. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings significantly.

Of the funds we track, Edgar Wachenheim’s Greenhaven Associates had the largest position in Molex Incorporated (NASDAQ:MOLX), worth close to $36 million, comprising 1.1% of its total 13F portfolio. On Greenhaven Associates’s heels is David Harding of Winton Capital Management, with a $19 million position; the fund has 0.5% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining hedge funds that hold long positions include Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates and Steven Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. SAC Capital Advisors, managed by Steven Cohen, assembled the most valuable position in Molex Incorporated (NASDAQ:MOLX). SAC Capital Advisors had 4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp also initiated a $1 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new MOLX positions are John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors, D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital.

Insider trading activity in Molex Incorporated (NASDAQ:MOLX)

Bullish insider trading is at its handiest when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest six-month time period, Molex Incorporated (NASDAQ:MOLX) has seen zero 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 Molex Incorporated (NASDAQ:MOLX). These stocks are AVX Corporation (NYSE:AVX), Amphenol Corporation (NYSE:APH), LG Display Co Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:LPL), Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI), and Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE:DLB). This group of stocks are the members of the diversified electronics industry and their market caps resemble MOLX’s market cap.

With the results exhibited by the aforementioned tactics, retail investors should always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Molex Incorporated (NASDAQ:MOLX) is an important part of this process.