Resources Connection, Inc. (NASDAQ:RECN): Hedge Funds Are Bullish and Insiders Are Bearish, What Should You Do? – Exponent, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO), Navigant Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:NCI)

Resources Connection, Inc. (NASDAQ:RECN) has seen an increase in enthusiasm from smart money lately.

In the eyes of most market participants, hedge funds are assumed to be worthless, old financial tools of yesteryear. While there are more than 8000 funds in operation today, we at Insider Monkey hone in on the moguls of this club, about 450 funds. Most estimates calculate that this group has its hands on most of all hedge funds’ total asset base, and by monitoring their best picks, we have discovered a number of investment strategies that have historically outperformed the market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per year 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 outperformed the S&P 500 index by 25 percentage points in 6.5 month (see the details here).

Equally as integral, optimistic insider trading activity is another way to parse down the world of equities. Just as you’d expect, there are plenty of incentives for an upper level exec to sell shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would initiate a purchase. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this tactic if “monkeys” know where to look (learn more here).

Consequently, we’re going to take a peek at the key action regarding Resources Connection, Inc. (NASDAQ:RECN).

How have hedgies been trading Resources Connection, Inc. (NASDAQ:RECN)?

In preparation for this year, a total of 13 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 8% from one quarter earlier. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes substantially.

Of the funds we track, AQR Capital Management, managed by Cliff Asness, holds the largest position in Resources Connection, Inc. (NASDAQ:RECN). AQR Capital Management has a $5 million position in the stock, comprising 0% of its 13F portfolio. On AQR Capital Management’s heels is Chuck Royce of Royce & Associates, with a $4 million position; 0% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other hedge funds that are bullish include Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.

As industrywide interest jumped, key hedge funds have jumped into Resources Connection, Inc. (NASDAQ:RECN) headfirst. Millennium Management, managed by Israel Englander, established the biggest position in Resources Connection, Inc. (NASDAQ:RECN). Millennium Management had 3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp also initiated a $0 million position during the quarter.

Insider trading activity in Resources Connection, Inc. (NASDAQ:RECN)

Insider buying is best served when the primary stock in question has experienced transactions within the past six months. Over the latest half-year time period, Resources Connection, Inc. (NASDAQ:RECN) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and 2 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also take a look at hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Resources Connection, Inc. (NASDAQ:RECN). These stocks are Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE), Exponent, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO), Navigant Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:NCI), Standard Parking Corporation (NASDAQ:STAN), and ICF International Inc (NASDAQ:ICFI). This group of stocks are the members of the management services industry and their market caps resemble RECN’s market cap.

With the results shown by Insider Monkey’s time-tested strategies, retail investors should always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Resources Connection, Inc. (NASDAQ:RECN) is no exception.