Is National Instruments Corp (NASDAQ:NATI) a healthy stock for your portfolio? Money managers are getting more optimistic. The number of long hedge fund positions improved by 1 lately.
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Equally as important, optimistic insider trading sentiment is another way to parse down the investments you’re interested in. As the old adage goes: there are lots of incentives for an upper level exec to sell shares of his or her company, but only one, very obvious reason why they would initiate a purchase. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this strategy if piggybackers know where to look (learn more here).
Keeping this in mind, let’s take a glance at the key action regarding National Instruments Corp (NASDAQ:NATI).
What have hedge funds been doing with National Instruments Corp (NASDAQ:NATI)?
At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 8 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 14% from the third quarter. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes considerably.
Of the funds we track, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates had the largest position in National Instruments Corp (NASDAQ:NATI), worth close to $160.8 million, accounting for 0.5% of its total 13F portfolio. On Royce & Associates’s heels is Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, which held a $9.4 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other peers with similar optimism include Ken Grossman and Glen Schneider’s SG Capital Management, Brian Ashford-Russell and Tim Woolley’s Polar Capital and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw.
As one would reasonably expect, key hedge funds have jumped into National Instruments Corp (NASDAQ:NATI) headfirst. SG Capital Management, managed by Ken Grossman and Glen Schneider, established the largest position in National Instruments Corp (NASDAQ:NATI). SG Capital Management had 4.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Brian Ashford-Russell and Tim Woolley’s Polar Capital also initiated a $4.2 million position during the quarter.
What have insiders been doing with National Instruments Corp (NASDAQ:NATI)?
Bullish insider trading is particularly usable when the company in focus has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest six-month time period, National Instruments Corp (NASDAQ:NATI) has seen 1 unique insiders buying, and 4 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
Let’s also review hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to National Instruments Corp (NASDAQ:NATI). These stocks are ACI Worldwide Inc (NASDAQ:ACIW), Mentor Graphics Corp (NASDAQ:MENT), ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSS), PTC Inc (NASDAQ:PMTC), and Concur Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:CNQR). All of these stocks are in the technical & system software industry and their market caps are similar to NATI’s market cap.
| Company Name | # of Hedge Funds | # of Insiders Buying | # of Insiders Selling |
| ACI Worldwide Inc (NASDAQ:ACIW) | 11 | 0 | 2 |
| Mentor Graphics Corp (NASDAQ:MENT) | 16 | 0 | 4 |
| ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSS) | 13 | 0 | 9 |
| PTC Inc (NASDAQ:PMTC) | 12 | 0 | 8 |
| Concur Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:CNQR) | 12 | 0 | 9 |
With the results exhibited by the aforementioned strategies, retail investors must always watch hedge fund and insider trading activity, and National Instruments Corp (NASDAQ:NATI) is no exception.
