CBS Corporation (NYSE:CBS) has seen an increase in hedge fund sentiment in recent months.
According to most traders, hedge funds are perceived as unimportant, old investment vehicles of yesteryear. While there are more than 8000 funds trading today, we choose to focus on the aristocrats of this club, close to 450 funds. It is widely believed that this group oversees most of the hedge fund industry’s total asset base, and by tracking their highest performing investments, we have figured out a few investment strategies that have historically outstripped the broader indices. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy beat the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points a year for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve started sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have topped the S&P 500 index by 23.3 percentage points in 8 months (see all of our picks from August).
Just as important, bullish insider trading activity is a second way to break down the world of equities. As the old adage goes: there are plenty of stimuli for an executive to get rid of shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would initiate a purchase. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this tactic if piggybackers know where to look (learn more here).
Now, it’s important to take a peek at the key action surrounding CBS Corporation (NYSE:CBS).
Hedge fund activity in CBS Corporation (NYSE:CBS)
At Q1’s end, a total of 65 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 30% from the first quarter. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings considerably.
When looking at the hedgies we track, Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management had the biggest position in CBS Corporation (NYSE:CBS), worth close to $652.6 million, accounting for 8.2% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Sean Cullinan of Point State Capital, with a $218 million position; the fund has 3.2% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other hedgies that are bullish include Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global, Daniel S. Och’s OZ Management and David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital.
As industrywide interest jumped, key hedge funds have jumped into CBS Corporation (NYSE:CBS) headfirst. Viking Global, managed by Andreas Halvorsen, initiated the biggest position in CBS Corporation (NYSE:CBS). Viking Global had 198.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. William B. Gray’s Orbis Investment Management also initiated a $163.8 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are John Griffin’s Blue Ridge Capital, Michael Karsch’s Karsch Capital Management, and Spencer M. Waxman’s Shannon River Fund Management.
Insider trading activity in CBS Corporation (NYSE:CBS)
Insider purchases made by high-level executives is particularly usable when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the last half-year time frame, CBS Corporation (NYSE:CBS) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
Let’s go over hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to CBS Corporation (NYSE:CBS). These stocks are CTC Media, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTCM), Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. (NYSE:SNI), Liberty Media Corp (NASDAQ:LMCA), and Grupo Televisa SAB (ADR) (NYSE:TV). This group of stocks belong to the broadcasting – tv industry and their market caps are closest to CBS’s market cap.
