Is Owens & Minor, Inc. (NYSE:OMI) ready to raly soon? The smart money is reducing their bets on the stock. The number of long hedge fund bets shrunk by 1 recently.
To most market participants, hedge funds are seen as slow, old financial vehicles of yesteryear. While there are over 8000 funds with their doors open today, we at Insider Monkey look at the crème de la crème of this group, close to 450 funds. It is widely believed that this group has its hands on most of all hedge funds’ total capital, and by monitoring their best picks, we have identified a few investment strategies that have historically outstripped the broader indices. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy beat the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points annually for a decade in our back tests, and since we‘ve began to sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have topped the S&P 500 index by 24 percentage points in 7 months (see all of our picks from August).
Just as integral, bullish insider trading activity is another way to parse down the marketplace. 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 simple reason why they would initiate a purchase. Several academic studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this tactic if shareholders understand where to look (learn more here).
Keeping this in mind, we’re going to take a peek at the latest action surrounding Owens & Minor, Inc. (NYSE:OMI).
How have hedgies been trading Owens & Minor, Inc. (NYSE:OMI)?
At year’s end, a total of 9 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of -10% from the previous quarter. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings substantially.
Of the funds we track, Royce & Associates, managed by Chuck Royce, holds the biggest position in Owens & Minor, Inc. (NYSE:OMI). Royce & Associates has a $47.9 million position in the stock, comprising 0.2% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Dreman Value Management, managed by David Dreman, which held a $31.5 million position; 0.9% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining peers that hold long positions include Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and Mario Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors.
Judging by the fact that Owens & Minor, Inc. (NYSE:OMI) has witnessed a declination in interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there exists a select few fund managers that decided to sell off their full holdings at the end of the year. Intriguingly, Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management dumped the biggest position of the “upper crust” of funds we watch, valued at about $2.7 million in stock., and D. E. Shaw of D E Shaw was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $1.3 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 1 funds at the end of the year.
What have insiders been doing with Owens & Minor, Inc. (NYSE:OMI)?
Insider purchases made by high-level executives is most useful when the primary stock in question has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last six-month time period, Owens & Minor, Inc. (NYSE:OMI) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and 8 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
Let’s check out hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Owens & Minor, Inc. (NYSE:OMI). These stocks are Chindex International, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHDX), Henry Schein, Inc. (NASDAQ:HSIC), Patterson Companies, Inc. (NASDAQ:PDCO), , and MWI Veterinary Supply, Inc. (NASDAQ:MWIV). This group of stocks are the members of the medical equipment wholesale industry and their market caps resemble OMI’s market cap.
| Company Name | # of Hedge Funds | # of Insiders Buying | # of Insiders Selling |
| Chindex International, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHDX) | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Henry Schein, Inc. (NASDAQ:HSIC) | 16 | 0 | 15 |
| Patterson Companies, Inc. (NASDAQ:PDCO) | 14 | 0 | 3 |
| MWI Veterinary Supply, Inc. (NASDAQ:MWIV) | 4 | 0 | 6 |
With the returns shown by our time-tested strategies, everyday investors must always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Owens & Minor, Inc. (NYSE:OMI) applies perfectly to this mantra.
