IHS Inc. (NYSE:IHS) was in 12 hedge funds’ portfolio at the end of the first quarter of 2013. IHS investors should be aware of an increase in enthusiasm from smart money lately. There were 8 hedge funds in our database with IHS holdings at the end of the previous quarter.
According to most traders, hedge funds are assumed to be worthless, outdated investment tools of years past. While there are more than 8000 funds trading at the moment, we at Insider Monkey look at the aristocrats of this group, close to 450 funds. Most estimates calculate that this group oversees most of the hedge fund industry’s total asset base, and by monitoring their best picks, we have uncovered a few investment strategies that have historically beaten Mr. Market. 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 23.3 percentage points in 8 months (see all of our picks from August).
Equally as key, optimistic insider trading sentiment is another way to break down the financial markets. Just as you’d expect, there are plenty of incentives for a bullish insider to downsize shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would behave bullishly. Various empirical studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this strategy if shareholders know what to do (learn more here).
With all of this in mind, we’re going to take a look at the key action encompassing IHS Inc. (NYSE:IHS).
Hedge fund activity in IHS Inc. (NYSE:IHS)
In preparation for this quarter, a total of 12 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 50% from the first quarter. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes substantially.
According to our comprehensive database, John Griffin’s Blue Ridge Capital had the most valuable position in IHS Inc. (NYSE:IHS), worth close to $175.9 million, comprising 2.2% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by James Crichton and Adam Weiss of Scout Capital Management, with a $156.4 million position; the fund has 2% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other peers with similar optimism include Robert Joseph Caruso’s Select Equity Group, David Stemerman’s Conatus Capital Management and Robert Pohly’s Samlyn Capital.
As one would reasonably expect, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Samlyn Capital, managed by Robert Pohly, assembled the most valuable position in IHS Inc. (NYSE:IHS). Samlyn Capital had 38.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Israel Englander’s Millennium Management also initiated a $4.3 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.
How are insiders trading IHS Inc. (NYSE:IHS)?
Insider purchases made by high-level executives is at its handiest when the primary stock in question has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest six-month time frame, IHS Inc. (NYSE:IHS) has seen 1 unique insiders buying, and 10 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
Let’s go over hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to IHS Inc. (NYSE:IHS). These stocks are DST Systems, Inc. (NYSE:DST), Morningstar, Inc. (NASDAQ:MORN), Dun & Bradstreet Corp (NYSE:DNB), Nielsen Hldg NV (NYSE:NLSN), and FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS). This group of stocks are in the information & delivery services industry and their market caps are closest to IHS’s market cap.
| Company Name | # of Hedge Funds | # of Insiders Buying | # of Insiders Selling |
| DST Systems, Inc. (NYSE:DST) | 23 | 1 | 7 |
| Morningstar, Inc. (NASDAQ:MORN) | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| Dun & Bradstreet Corp (NYSE:DNB) | 14 | 0 | 3 |
| Nielsen Hldg NV (NYSE:NLSN) | 20 | 0 | 22 |
| FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS) | 17 | 0 | 7 |
With the results demonstrated by the aforementioned studies, everyday investors must always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and IHS Inc. (NYSE:IHS) is an important part of this process.
