What’s a smart Popular Inc (NASDAQ:BPOP) investor to do?
To the average investor, there are dozens of methods investors can use to monitor their holdings. A pair of the most useful are hedge fund and insider trading movement. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top money managers can outpace their index-focused peers by a healthy margin (see just how much).
Equally as key, optimistic insider trading activity is another way to analyze the financial markets. Obviously, there are many motivations for a bullish insider to get rid of shares of his or her company, but only one, very simple reason why they would buy. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this strategy if “monkeys” understand where to look (learn more here).
Keeping this in mind, we’re going to discuss the latest info for Popular Inc (NASDAQ:BPOP).
What does the smart money think about Popular Inc (NASDAQ:BPOP)?
Heading into Q3, a total of 22 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -4% from the first quarter. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes significantly.
Out of the hedge funds we follow, John Paulson’s Paulson & Co had the most valuable position in Popular Inc (NASDAQ:BPOP), worth close to $268.6 million, accounting for 1.9% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Valinor Management LLC, managed by David Gallo, which held a $191.3 million position; 7.9% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other hedgies that are bullish include Ric Dillon’s Diamond Hill Capital, David Goel and Paul Ferri’s Matrix Capital Management and Debra Fine’s Fine Capital Partners.
Judging by the fact that Popular Inc (NASDAQ:BPOP) has faced bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there exists a select few money managers that decided to sell off their entire stakes in Q1. It’s worth mentioning that Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group cut the biggest investment of the “upper crust” of funds we watch, valued at about $13.8 million in stock. Charles Davidson’s fund, Wexford Capital, also said goodbye to its stock, about $5 million worth. These moves are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 1 funds in Q1.
Insider trading activity in Popular Inc (NASDAQ:BPOP)
Legal insider trading, particularly when it’s bullish, is at its handiest when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest 180-day time period, Popular Inc (NASDAQ:BPOP) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
Using the returns demonstrated by Insider Monkey’s research, average investors should always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Popular Inc (NASDAQ:BPOP) is no exception.
