Millennial Media, Inc. (MM): Insiders Aren’t Crazy About It

Millennial Media, Inc. (NYSE:MM) investors should be aware of a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds in recent months.

In the financial world, there are dozens of methods investors can use to track Mr. Market. Two of the best are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top money managers can outperform the S&P 500 by a significant amount (see just how much).

Just as beneficial, bullish insider trading sentiment is a second way to parse down the world of equities. As the old adage goes: there are a number of motivations for an insider to get rid of shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would initiate a purchase. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this tactic if piggybackers understand what to do (learn more here).

With all of this in mind, we’re going to take a peek at the key action encompassing Millennial Media, Inc. (NYSE:MM).

How are hedge funds trading Millennial Media, Inc. (NYSE:MM)?

At Q1’s end, a total of 12 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -29% from the previous quarter. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes meaningfully.

Of the funds we track, Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group had the biggest position in Millennial Media, Inc. (NYSE:MM), worth close to $3.5 million, accounting for 0.2% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies, with a $3.4 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other peers with similar optimism include Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management, Steven Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.

Judging by the fact that Millennial Media, Inc. (NYSE:MM) has experienced declining sentiment from the smart money, logic holds that there lies a certain “tier” of hedgies who sold off their positions entirely heading into Q2. Intriguingly, Donald Chiboucis’s Columbus Circle Investors said goodbye to the largest investment of the 450+ funds we monitor, worth an estimated $20.5 million in stock.. Lee Hobson’s fund, Highside Capital Management, also sold off its stock, about $12.2 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 5 funds heading into Q2.

How are insiders trading Millennial Media, Inc. (NYSE:MM)?

Bullish insider trading is at its handiest when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the latest half-year time period, Millennial Media, Inc. (NYSE:MM) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and 5 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also examine hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Millennial Media, Inc. (NYSE:MM). These stocks are Valassis Communications, Inc. (NYSE:VCI), National CineMedia, Inc. (NASDAQ:NCMI), Constant Contact Inc (NASDAQ:CTCT), Harte-Hanks, Inc. (NYSE:HHS), and MDC Partners Inc. (USA) (NASDAQ:MDCA). This group of stocks are in the marketing services industry and their market caps are similar to MM’s market cap.

With the returns exhibited by Insider Monkey’s tactics, retail investors must always monitor hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Millennial Media, Inc. (NYSE:MM) applies perfectly to this mantra.

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