This Metric Says You Are Smart to Buy PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG)

Is PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG) a good investment?

At the moment, there are plenty of metrics shareholders can use to watch their holdings. A duo of the best are hedge fund and insider trading interest. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outclass the S&P 500 by a significant margin (see just how much).

Just as crucial, optimistic insider trading activity is a second way to analyze the investments you’re interested in. There are plenty of reasons for an insider to drop shares of his or her company, but only one, very obvious reason why they would buy. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this method if shareholders know what to do (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, let’s examine the newest info surrounding PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG).

How have hedgies been trading PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG)?

At the end of the second quarter, a total of 16 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 45% from the first quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes significantly.

When using filings from the hedgies we track, John A. Levin’s Levin Capital Strategies had the biggest position in PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG), worth close to $191.5 million, accounting for 3.4% of its total 13F portfolio. On Levin Capital Strategies’s heels is Carlson Capital, managed by Clint Carlson, which held a $66.2 million position; 0.8% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining peers that are bullish include D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.

As aggregate interest spiked, certain bigger names were breaking ground themselves. Levin Capital Strategies, managed by John A. Levin, established the biggest position in PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG). Levin Capital Strategies had 191.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Clint Carlson’s Carlson Capital also made a $66.2 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new PCG investors: D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management, and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.

How have insiders been trading PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG)?

Insider buying is particularly usable when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the last six-month time frame, PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG) 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 PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG). These stocks are Edison International (NYSE:EIX), Korea Electric Power Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:KEP), FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE:FE), Consolidated Edison, Inc. (NYSE:ED), and PPL Corporation (NYSE:PPL). This group of stocks belong to the electric utilities industry and their market caps resemble PCG’s market cap.