Perrigo Company (PRGO): What’s The Smart Money Think?

Perrigo Company (NASDAQ:PRGO) was in 24 hedge funds’ portfolio at the end of March. PRGO has seen an increase in hedge fund interest in recent months. There were 17 hedge funds in our database with PRGO holdings at the end of the previous quarter.

At the moment, there are a multitude of indicators investors can use to analyze their holdings. A couple of the most innovative are hedge fund and insider trading activity. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best money managers can outclass their index-focused peers by a significant margin (see just how much).

Just as integral, positive insider trading sentiment is another way to break down the marketplace. There are a number of stimuli for a bullish insider to cut shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would buy. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this strategy if investors know where to look (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, we’re going to take a look at the recent action encompassing Perrigo Company (NASDAQ:PRGO).

What does the smart money think about Perrigo Company (NASDAQ:PRGO)?

Heading into Q2, a total of 24 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 41% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially.

According to our comprehensive database, Jacob Gottlieb’s Visium Asset Management had the most valuable position in Perrigo Company (NASDAQ:PRGO), worth close to $98 million, accounting for 2.5% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Sectoral Asset Management, managed by Jerome Pfund and Michael Sjostrom, which held a $84.2 million position; the fund has 2.6% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining hedgies that are bullish include Robert Joseph Caruso’s Select Equity Group, Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.

As industrywide interest jumped, key money managers have been driving this bullishness. Visium Asset Management, managed by Jacob Gottlieb, created the biggest position in Perrigo Company (NASDAQ:PRGO). Visium Asset Management had 98 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Arthur B Cohen and Joseph Healey’s Healthcor Management LP also initiated a $38.6 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new PRGO positions are Joe DiMenna’s ZWEIG DIMENNA PARTNERS, John Murphy’s Alydar Capital, and Brian Ashford-Russell and Tim Woolley’s Polar Capital.

Insider trading activity in Perrigo Company (NASDAQ:PRGO)

Insider buying is best served when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest 180-day time frame, Perrigo Company (NASDAQ:PRGO) has experienced 1 unique insiders buying, and 13 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

With the returns shown by our time-tested strategies, retail investors must always keep an eye on hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Perrigo Company (NASDAQ:PRGO) is an important part of this process.

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