Should You Avoid ANSYS, Inc. (ANSS)?

ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSS) investors should pay attention to a decrease in hedge fund sentiment recently.

To the average investor, there are tons of indicators shareholders can use to monitor the equity markets. A pair of the best are hedge fund and insider trading movement. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite investment managers can outperform the market by a solid margin (see just how much).

Equally as key, positive insider trading activity is a second way to break down the marketplace. There are a number of motivations for an upper level exec to downsize shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would behave bullishly. Several academic studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this strategy if shareholders know what to do (learn more here).

With these “truths” under our belt, we’re going to take a glance at the recent action surrounding ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSS).

Hedge fund activity in ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSS)

Heading into Q2, a total of 12 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -14% from the first quarter. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes meaningfully.

When looking at the hedgies we track, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates had the largest position in ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSS), worth close to $60 million, accounting for 0.2% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Andrew Sandler of Sandler Capital Management, with a $20 million position; the fund has 0.6% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other hedge funds that hold long positions include James A. Noonan’s Pivot Point Capital, Van Schreiber’s Bennett Lawrence Management and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital.

Due to the fact that ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSS) has experienced bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, it’s easy to see that there is a sect of hedgies that elected to cut their positions entirely heading into Q2. Intriguingly, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management dropped the biggest stake of the 450+ funds we track, totaling about $8.1 million in stock., and Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $5.4 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 2 funds heading into Q2.

What do corporate executives and insiders think about ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSS)?

Bullish insider trading is most useful when the company in focus has experienced transactions within the past six months. Over the last six-month time period, ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSS) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and 8 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s go over hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSS). These stocks are Mentor Graphics Corp (NASDAQ:MENT), PTC Inc (NASDAQ:PMTC), Concur Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:CNQR), National Instruments Corp (NASDAQ:NATI), and Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK). This group of stocks belong to the technical & system software industry and their market caps are similar to ANSS’s market cap.