Pall Corporation (NYSE:PLL): Hedge Funds Are Bearish and Insiders Are Bullish, What Should You Do?

Pall Corporation (NYSE:PLL) has seen a decrease in support from the world’s most elite money managers in recent months.

In the eyes of most traders, hedge funds are perceived as worthless, old financial tools of the past. While there are over 8000 funds in operation at the moment, we at Insider Monkey look at the bigwigs of this group, close to 450 funds. It is estimated that this group controls most of the hedge fund industry’s total capital, and by paying attention to their top picks, we have formulated a few investment strategies that have historically outpaced the market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed 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 trumped the S&P 500 index by 25 percentage points in 6.5 month (check out a sample of our picks).

Pall Corporation (NYSE:PLL)

Equally as key, positive insider trading sentiment is another way to parse down the stock market universe. As the old adage goes: there are many stimuli for a corporate insider to downsize shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would behave bullishly. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this method if “monkeys” know where to look (learn more here).

With all of this in mind, let’s take a peek at the key action regarding Pall Corporation (NYSE:PLL).

How are hedge funds trading Pall Corporation (NYSE:PLL)?

At year’s end, a total of 16 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -11% from the third quarter. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings significantly.

According to our comprehensive database, Robert Joseph Caruso’s Select Equity Group had the most valuable position in Pall Corporation (NYSE:PLL), worth close to $165 million, accounting for 2.6% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Renaissance Technologies, managed by Jim Simons, which held a $37 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other peers that hold long positions include Donald Chiboucis’s Columbus Circle Investors, Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.

Seeing as Pall Corporation (NYSE:PLL) has witnessed falling interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s easy to see that there were a few hedge funds who sold off their full holdings in Q4. It’s worth mentioning that Tom Facciola’s Tigershark Partners dropped the largest position of the “upper crust” of funds we watch, worth about $1 million in stock., and Israel Englander of Catapult Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund cut about $1 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 2 funds in Q4.

What do corporate executives and insiders think about Pall Corporation (NYSE:PLL)?

Insider purchases made by high-level executives is particularly usable when the primary stock in question has experienced transactions within the past six months. Over the last six-month time frame, Pall Corporation (NYSE:PLL) has seen 1 unique insiders purchasing, and 7 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

With the returns exhibited by Insider Monkey’s studies, retail investors must always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Pall Corporation (NYSE:PLL) applies perfectly to this mantra.

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