What should a smart Thor Industries, Inc. (NYSE:THO) investor do?
Now, according to many investors, hedge funds are seen as useless, outdated investment tools of a period lost to current times. Although there are over 8,000 hedge funds in operation currently, Insider Monkey focuses on the moguls of this club, about 525 funds. It is assumed that this group controls most of all hedge funds’ total assets, and by watching their best stock picks, we’ve come up with a few investment strategies that have historically outperformed Mr. Market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outpaced the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per annum 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 beaten the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (find the details here).
Just as necessary, optimistic insider trading activity is another way to look at the financial markets. Obviously, there are many incentives for a corporate insider to downsize shares of his or her company, but only one, very obvious reason why they would buy. Several empirical studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this method if piggybackers understand what to do (learn more here).
Now that that’s out of the way, we’re going to study the latest info surrounding Thor Industries, Inc. (NYSE:THO).
How have hedgies been trading Thor Industries, Inc. (NYSE:THO)?
In preparation for the third quarter, a total of 15 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 7% from the first quarter. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings significantly.
According to our 13F database, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates had the biggest position in Thor Industries, Inc. (NYSE:THO), worth close to $374.3 million, comprising 1.2% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Malcolm Fairbairn of Ascend Capital, with a $10.2 million position; 0.4% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other hedgies that are bullish include Natixis Global Asset Management’s Harris Associates, Matthew Lindenbaum’s Basswood Capital and David Harding’s Winton Capital Management.
With a general bullishness amongst the titans, certain bigger names were leading the bulls’ herd. Royce & Associates, managed by Chuck Royce, initiated the largest position in Thor Industries, Inc. (NYSE:THO). Royce & Associates had 374.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Malcolm Fairbairn’s Ascend Capital also made a $10.2 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Matthew Lindenbaum’s Basswood Capital, David Harding’s Winton Capital Management, and Peter Algert and Kevin Coldiron’s Algert Coldiron Investors.
Insider trading activity in Thor Industries, Inc. (NYSE:THO)
Insider buying is most useful when the company in question has experienced transactions within the past six months. Over the latest half-year time frame, Thor Industries, Inc. (NYSE:THO) has experienced 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 Thor Industries, Inc. (NYSE:THO). These stocks are Federal Signal Corporation (NYSE:FSS), Arctic Cat Inc (NASDAQ:ACAT), Winnebago Industries, Inc. (NYSE:WGO), Polaris Industries Inc. (NYSE:PII), and Drew Industries, Inc. (NYSE:DW). This group of stocks belong to the recreational vehicles industry and their market caps match THO’s market cap.
