Is SEI Investments Company (NASDAQ:SEIC) a good investment?
In the eyes of many of your peers, hedge funds are viewed as overrated, old financial vehicles of a period lost to current times. Although there are In excess of 8,000 hedge funds with their doors open in present day, Insider Monkey looks at the upper echelon of this group, close to 525 funds. It is assumed that this group oversees the majority of all hedge funds’ total capital, and by paying attention to their highest quality stock picks, we’ve revealed a few investment strategies that have historically outperformed the broader indices. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points annually for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve started sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have trumped the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (find the details here).
Just as key, optimistic insider trading activity is another way to look at the financial markets. Just as you’d expect, there are plenty of reasons for a corporate insider to cut shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would initiate a purchase. Many academic studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this strategy if investors understand what to do (learn more here).
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s study the recent info about SEI Investments Company (NASDAQ:SEIC).
What have hedge funds been doing with SEI Investments Company (NASDAQ:SEIC)?
In preparation for the third quarter, a total of 24 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 9% from one quarter earlier. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes substantially.
Out of the hedge funds we follow, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates had the largest position in SEI Investments Company (NASDAQ:SEIC), worth close to $119.3 million, accounting for 0.4% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Highbridge Capital Management, managed by Glenn Russell Dubin, which held a $62.5 million position; 0.6% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other hedge funds that hold long positions include Richard Blum’s Blum Capital Partners, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and Robert Joseph Caruso’s Select Equity Group.
As one would understandably expect, certain bigger names have jumped into SEI Investments Company (NASDAQ:SEIC) headfirst. Royce & Associates, managed by Chuck Royce, initiated the biggest position in SEI Investments Company (NASDAQ:SEIC). Royce & Associates had 119.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management also initiated a $62.5 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new SEIC positions are Richard Blum’s Blum Capital Partners, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, and Robert Joseph Caruso’s Select Equity Group.
What do corporate executives and insiders think about SEI Investments Company (NASDAQ:SEIC)?
Legal insider trading, particularly when it’s bullish, is best served when the company in question has experienced transactions within the past six months. Over the last 180-day time period, SEI Investments Company (NASDAQ:SEIC) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
We’ll also review the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to SEI Investments Company (NASDAQ:SEIC). These stocks are Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC (NYSE:OZM), Legg Mason, Inc. (NYSE:LM), Lazard Ltd (NYSE:LAZ), American Capital Ltd. (NASDAQ:ACAS), and Eaton Vance Corp (NYSE:EV). This group of stocks belong to the asset management industry and their market caps are closest to SEIC’s market cap.
