What’s a smart Synaptics, Incorporated (NASDAQ:SYNA) investor to do?
In the eyes of many investors, hedge funds are perceived as bloated, outdated investment vehicles of a period lost to current times. Although there are over 8,000 hedge funds trading in present day, this site focuses on the crème de la crème of this club, about 525 funds. Analysts calculate that this group oversees most of all hedge funds’ total capital, and by monitoring their best equity investments, we’ve deciphered 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 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 trumped the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (explore the details and some picks here).
Equally as useful, bullish insider trading activity is a second way to look at the world of equities. There are plenty of incentives for an insider to cut shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would behave bullishly. Several academic studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this strategy if shareholders know where to look (learn more here).
What’s more, it’s important to examine the newest info for Synaptics, Incorporated (NASDAQ:SYNA).
Hedge fund activity in Synaptics, Incorporated (NASDAQ:SYNA)
Heading into Q3, a total of 19 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 73% from the first quarter. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings significantly.
With a general bullishness amongst the titans, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Arrowstreet Capital, managed by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell, created the most valuable position in Synaptics, Incorporated (NASDAQ:SYNA). Arrowstreet Capital had 21.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Robert B. Gillam’s McKinley Capital Management also made a $17.7 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, and Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management.
What have insiders been doing with Synaptics, Incorporated (NASDAQ:SYNA)?
Legal insider trading, particularly when it’s bullish, is best served when the company in question has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest 180-day time frame, Synaptics, Incorporated (NASDAQ:SYNA) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, 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 Synaptics, Incorporated (NASDAQ:SYNA). These stocks are Stratasys, Ltd. (NASDAQ:SSYS), Nice Systems Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:NICE), Electronics For Imaging, Inc. (NASDAQ:EFII), Logitech International SA (USA) (NASDAQ:LOGI), and Universal Display Corporation (NASDAQ:PANL). All of these stocks are in the computer peripherals industry and their market caps are closest to SYNA’s market cap.
| Company Name | # of Hedge Funds | # of Insiders Buying | # of Insiders Selling |
| Stratasys, Ltd. (NASDAQ:SSYS) | 15 | 0 | 0 |
| Nice Systems Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:NICE) | 16 | 0 | 0 |
| Electronics For Imaging, Inc. (NASDAQ:EFII) | 17 | 0 | 0 |
| Logitech International SA (USA) (NASDAQ:LOGI) | 10 | 0 | 0 |
| Universal Display Corporation (NASDAQ:PANL) | 9 | 0 | 0 |
Using the returns explained by our analyses, average investors should always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Synaptics, Incorporated (NASDAQ:SYNA) is an important part of this process.
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