Should You Avoid ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSS)? – PTC Inc (NASDAQ:PMTC), National Instruments Corp (NASDAQ:NATI)

ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSS) has seen a decrease in hedge fund interest in recent months.

To the average investor, there are plenty of metrics market participants can use to watch their holdings. A couple of the most underrated 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 trounce their index-focused peers by a very impressive margin (see just how much).

Equally as integral, optimistic insider trading sentiment is a second way to parse down the stock market universe. Just as you’d expect, there are a variety of stimuli for a corporate insider to downsize shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would behave bullishly. Many academic studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this tactic if piggybackers understand what to do (learn more here).

Now, it’s important to take a glance at the latest action regarding ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSS).

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

At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 13 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 0% from the previous quarter. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes meaningfully.

According to our comprehensive database, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates had the most valuable position in ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSS), worth close to $53 million, accounting for 0.2% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Pivot Point Capital, managed by James A. Noonan, which held a $16 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining hedgies with similar optimism include Andrew Sandler’s Sandler Capital Management, Van Schreiber’s Bennett Lawrence Management and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.

Seeing as ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSS) has faced a declination in interest from the smart money, it’s safe to say that there was a specific group of hedge funds who sold off their full holdings at the end of the year. Intriguingly, Panayotis æTakisÆ Sparaggis’s Alkeon Capital Management said goodbye to the biggest position of all the hedgies we key on, totaling about $38 million in stock.. Louis Navellier’s fund, Navellier & Associates, also cut its stock, about $0 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

What have insiders been doing with ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSS)?

Insider trading activity, especially when it’s bullish, is most useful when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the last 180-day time frame, ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSS) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and 10 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 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). All of these stocks are in the technical & system software industry and their market caps are closest to ANSS’s market cap.

With the returns exhibited by the aforementioned studies, everyday investors must always keep an eye on hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and ANSYS, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSS) applies perfectly to this mantra.