Should You Avoid Gildan Activewear Inc (USA) (GIL)?

If you were to ask many of your fellow readers, hedge funds are assumed to be bloated, old investment tools of a period lost to current times. Although there are more than 8,000 hedge funds trading in present day, Insider Monkey aim at the top tier of this club, around 525 funds. It is assumed that this group controls most of the smart money’s total capital, and by paying attention to their highest performing equity investments, we’ve figured out a few investment strategies that have historically outpaced the broader indices. 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 outpaced the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (explore the details and some picks here).

Just as key, optimistic insider trading sentiment is another way to analyze the marketplace. As the old adage goes: there are a number of stimuli for an insider to get rid of shares of his or her company, but only one, very simple reason why they would initiate a purchase. Various academic studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this method if “monkeys” understand where to look (learn more here).

Furthermore, we’re going to discuss the newest info about Gildan Activewear Inc (USA) (NYSE:GIL).

What have hedge funds been doing with Gildan Activewear Inc (USA) (NYSE:GIL)?

At the end of the second quarter, a total of 12 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -8% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes considerably.

When using filings from the hedgies we track, Gregg J. Powers’s Private Capital Management had the most valuable position in Gildan Activewear Inc (USA) (NYSE:GIL), worth close to $20.6 million, comprising 1.9% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell of Arrowstreet Capital, with a $19.4 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other hedgies with similar optimism include Robert B. Gillam’s McKinley Capital Management, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates and David Keidan’s Buckingham Capital Management.

Since Gildan Activewear Inc (USA) (NYSE:GIL) has faced dropping sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s safe to say that there lies a certain “tier” of funds that decided to sell off their positions entirely in Q1. Interestingly, Alexander Mitchell’s Scopus Asset Management said goodbye to the biggest investment of the “upper crust” of funds we key on, worth about $48.8 million in stock. Glenn J. Krevlin’s fund, Glenhill Advisors, also dropped its stock, about $14.5 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 1 funds in Q1.

What do corporate executives and insiders think about Gildan Activewear Inc (USA) (NYSE:GIL)?

Insider buying is most useful when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the last six-month time period, Gildan Activewear Inc (USA) (NYSE:GIL) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

We’ll check out the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Gildan Activewear Inc (USA) (NYSE:GIL). These stocks are PVH Corp (NYSE:PVH), Lululemon Athletica inc. (NASDAQ:LULU), Carter’s, Inc. (NYSE:CRI), Under Armour Inc (NYSE:UA), and Hanesbrands Inc. (NYSE:HBI). This group of stocks are in the textile – apparel clothing industry and their market caps match GIL’s market cap.

Using the results explained by Insider Monkey’s tactics, regular investors should always keep one eye on hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Gildan Activewear Inc (USA) (NYSE:GIL) shareholders fit into this picture quite nicely.

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