Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE) shareholders have witnessed an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers lately.
If you’d ask most market participants, hedge funds are perceived as slow, old investment tools of the past. While there are more than 8000 funds with their doors open at present, we hone in on the elite of this club, about 450 funds. It is estimated that this group has its hands on the lion’s share of the hedge fund industry’s total asset base, and by watching their top equity investments, we have brought to light a number of investment strategies that have historically outperformed the market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points a 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 trumped the S&P 500 index by 23.3 percentage points in 8 months (see the details here).
Equally as beneficial, bullish insider trading sentiment is a second way to break down the stock market universe. Just as you’d expect, there are lots of reasons for a corporate insider to sell shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would buy. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this method if piggybackers understand where to look (learn more here).
With all of this in mind, let’s take a gander at the key action encompassing Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE).
How have hedgies been trading Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE)?
At Q1’s end, a total of 15 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 67% from the first quarter. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings considerably.
Of the funds we track, Harvest Capital Strategies, managed by Joseph A. Jolson, holds the largest position in Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE). Harvest Capital Strategies has a $9.6 million position in the stock, comprising 0.7% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Ken Griffin of Citadel Investment Group, with a $7.1 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other hedgies that hold long positions include Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, Donald Chiboucis’s Columbus Circle Investors and Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group.
Consequently, some big names have been driving this bullishness. Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, created the most outsized position in Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE). Citadel Investment Group had 7.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Donald Chiboucis’s Columbus Circle Investors also initiated a $4.2 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new WAGE positions are Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors, and Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management.
What do corporate executives and insiders think about Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE)?
Insider buying is particularly usable when the company in focus has experienced transactions within the past six months. Over the last 180-day time frame, Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE) has experienced 1 unique insiders buying, and 8 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
Let’s also review hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE). These stocks are ICF International Inc (NASDAQ:ICFI), Accretive Health, Inc. (NYSE:AH), Navigant Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:NCI), Huron Consulting Group (NASDAQ:HURN), and Exponent, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO). This group of stocks are the members of the management services industry and their market caps resemble WAGE’s market cap.
| Company Name | # of Hedge Funds | # of Insiders Buying | # of Insiders Selling |
| ICF International Inc (NASDAQ:ICFI) | 9 | 0 | 2 |
| Accretive Health, Inc. (NYSE:AH) | 16 | 0 | 1 |
| Navigant Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:NCI) | 14 | 0 | 3 |
| Huron Consulting Group (NASDAQ:HURN) | 13 | 0 | 6 |
| Exponent, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO) | 6 | 1 | 8 |
With the returns exhibited by our tactics, everyday investors must always monitor hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE) applies perfectly to this mantra.
