This First Solar, Inc. (FSLR) Data Is Screaming ‘Buy, Buy, Buy’

First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR) investors: listen up.

Now, according to many of your fellow readers, hedge funds are viewed as overrated, old investment vehicles of a forgotten age. Although there are more than 8,000 hedge funds with their doors open in present day, Insider Monkey looks at the bigwigs of this group, close to 525 funds. It is assumed that this group oversees the lion’s share of the smart money’s total capital, and by monitoring their highest quality equity investments, we’ve identified a few investment strategies that have historically beaten the broader indices. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed 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 topped the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (find the details here).

Equally as useful, bullish insider trading sentiment is another way to look at the marketplace. As the old adage goes: there are a variety of stimuli for an executive to cut shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would buy. Various academic studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this tactic if shareholders understand where to look (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, let’s discuss the newest info for First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR).

How are hedge funds trading First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR)?

At Q2’s end, a total of 25 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 19% from the previous quarter. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes considerably.

According to our 13F database, AQR Capital Management, managed by Cliff Asness, holds the most valuable position in First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR). AQR Capital Management has a $54 million position in the stock, comprising 0.2% of its 13F portfolio. On AQR Capital Management’s heels is Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, which held a $26.1 million call position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining hedgies that are bullish include Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and Scott Fine and Peter Richards’s Empire Capital Management.

As industrywide interest increased, specific money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. AQR Capital Management, managed by Cliff Asness, established the most valuable position in First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR). AQR Capital Management had 54 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group also made a $26.1 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new FSLR positions are Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, and Scott Fine and Peter Richards’s Empire Capital Management.

How have insiders been trading First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR)?

Legal insider trading, particularly when it’s bullish, is at its handiest when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the latest 180-day time period, First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

We’ll also take a look at the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR). These stocks are SolarCity Corp (NASDAQ:SCTY), Cirrus Logic, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRUS), LSI Corp (NASDAQ:LSI), Silicon Laboratories (NASDAQ:SLAB), and SunPower Corporation (NASDAQ:SPWR). This group of stocks belong to the semiconductor – specialized industry and their market caps match FSLR’s market cap.

Using the returns shown by the previously mentioned research, average investors should always watch hedge fund and insider trading activity, and First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR) shareholders fit into this picture quite nicely.

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