Syngenta AG (ADR) (SYT): Are Hedge Funds Right About This Stock?: CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (CF), Agrium Inc. (USA) (AGU)

Is Syngenta AG (ADR) (NYSE:SYT) a healthy stock for your portfolio? The best stock pickers are becoming less confident. The number of long hedge fund bets went down by 1 lately.

At the moment, there are dozens of gauges investors can use to monitor stocks. A duo 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 top hedge fund managers can outclass the S&P 500 by a significant amount (see just how much).

Equally as integral, optimistic insider trading activity is a second way to break down the financial markets. As the old adage goes: there are many stimuli for an insider to get rid of shares of his or her company, but only one, very obvious reason why they would initiate a purchase. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this tactic if you understand what to do (learn more here).

Now, let’s take a gander at the recent action encompassing Syngenta AG (ADR) (NYSE:SYT).

What have hedge funds been doing with Syngenta AG (ADR) (NYSE:SYT)?

At year’s end, a total of 10 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -9% from the previous quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings significantly.

Of the funds we track, Fisher Asset Management, managed by Ken Fisher, holds the most valuable position in Syngenta AG (ADR) (NYSE:SYT). Fisher Asset Management has a $57 million position in the stock, comprising 0.2% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies, with a $8 million position; 0% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining hedge funds that hold long positions include J. Alan Reid, Jr.’s Forward Management, Mario Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors and Robert B. Gillam’s McKinley Capital Management.

Due to the fact that Syngenta AG (ADR) (NYSE:SYT) has witnessed falling interest from the smart money, we can see that there lies a certain “tier” of fund managers who were dropping their full holdings at the end of the year. At the top of the heap, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital cut the largest investment of the “upper crust” of funds we key on, totaling about $6 million in stock., and Peter J. Eichler Jr. of Aletheia Research and Management was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $2 million worth. These moves are important to note, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 1 funds at the end of the year.

Insider trading activity in Syngenta AG (ADR) (NYSE:SYT)

Insider trading activity, especially when it’s bullish, is most useful when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the latest six-month time period, Syngenta AG (ADR) (NYSE:SYT) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s check out hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Syngenta AG (ADR) (NYSE:SYT). These stocks are CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CF), Agrium Inc. (USA) (NYSE:AGU), Mosaic Co (NYSE:MOS), Monsanto Company (NYSE:MON), and Potash Corp./Saskatchewan (USA) (NYSE:POT). This group of stocks belong to the agricultural chemicals industry and their market caps match SYT’s market cap.

With the returns exhibited by Insider Monkey’s tactics, retail investors must always watch hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Syngenta AG (ADR) (NYSE:SYT) is an important part of this process.

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