Should You Avoid Molina Healthcare, Inc. (MOH)?

To the average investor, there are dozens of methods shareholders can use to analyze publicly traded companies. A pair of the most under-the-radar are hedge fund and insider trading activity. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best investment managers can beat their index-focused peers by a superb margin (see just how much).

Just as useful, bullish insider trading activity is a second way to analyze the world of equities. Just as you’d expect, there are many stimuli for a corporate insider to sell shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would initiate a purchase. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this method if investors know where to look (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, we’re going to discuss the newest info for Molina Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:MOH).

How are hedge funds trading Molina Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:MOH)?

In preparation for the third quarter, a total of 21 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -19% from the first quarter. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings meaningfully.

When using filings from the hedgies we track, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies had the most valuable position in Molina Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:MOH), worth close to $76.3 million, comprising 0.2% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Samuel Isaly of OrbiMed Advisors, with a $61.9 million position; 1.3% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other hedgies that are bullish include Arthur B Cohen and Joseph Healey’s Healthcor Management LP, James E. Flynn’s Deerfield Management and Steven Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors.

Judging by the fact that Molina Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:MOH) has faced declining interest from the smart money’s best and brightest, it’s easy to see that there lies a certain “tier” of money managers that elected to cut their entire stakes heading into Q2. Interestingly, Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management dropped the biggest stake of the 450+ funds we key on, valued at about $1.9 million in stock. Brian Taylor’s fund, Pine River Capital Management, also dropped its stock, about $1.8 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 5 funds heading into Q2.

How are insiders trading Molina Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:MOH)?

Bullish insider trading is most useful when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest 180-day time period, Molina Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:MOH) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

We’ll also take a look at the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Molina Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:MOH). These stocks are Universal American Corporation (NYSE:UAM), WellCare Health Plans, Inc. (NYSE:WCG), Centene Corp (NYSE:CNC), Health Net, Inc. (NYSE:HNT), and Magellan Health Services Inc (NASDAQ:MGLN). This group of stocks are the members of the health care plans industry and their market caps resemble MOH’s market cap.

Using the results explained by Insider Monkey’s tactics, average investors must always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Molina Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:MOH) is an important part of this process.

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