Owens & Minor, Inc. (OMI): Insiders Aren’t Crazy About It

Is Owens & Minor, Inc. (NYSE:OMI) a buy right now? Prominent investors are reducing their bets on the stock. The number of bullish hedge fund bets stayed the same which is a slightly negative development in our experience

In the financial world, there are many metrics investors can use to track stocks. A duo of the most innovative 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 investment managers can outpace their index-focused peers by a significant margin (see just how much).

Just as important, positive insider trading activity is another way to parse down the financial markets. Obviously, there are many reasons for a corporate insider to sell shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would initiate a purchase. Various empirical studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this method if piggybackers understand where to look (learn more here).

With all of this in mind, let’s take a glance at the key action regarding Owens & Minor, Inc. (NYSE:OMI).

What have hedge funds been doing with Owens & Minor, Inc. (NYSE:OMI)?

At Q1’s end, a total of 9 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 0% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes significantly.

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 $59.6 million position in the stock, comprising 0.2% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is David Dreman of Dreman Value Management, with a $35.5 million position; 0.9% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other hedge funds that hold long positions include Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Mario Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors and Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management.

Seeing as Owens & Minor, Inc. (NYSE:OMI) has witnessed a declination in interest from the smart money, we can see that there was a specific group of hedgies that decided to sell off their positions entirely last quarter. At the top of the heap, Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp dumped the largest position of all the hedgies we monitor, totaling about $14.1 million in stock., and Jacob Gottlieb of Visium Asset Management was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $3.1 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

How are insiders trading Owens & Minor, Inc. (NYSE:OMI)?

Insider buying is best served when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the last half-year time frame, Owens & Minor, Inc. (NYSE:OMI) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and 10 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also examine 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). All of these stocks are in the medical equipment wholesale industry and their market caps resemble OMI’s market cap.

With the returns shown by Insider Monkey’s tactics, everyday investors must always keep an eye on hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Owens & Minor, Inc. (NYSE:OMI) is an important part of this process.

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