This Metric Says You Are Smart to Buy Superior Energy Services, Inc. (SPN)

Is it smart to be bullish on Superior Energy Services, Inc. (NYSE:SPN)?

In the eyes of many market players, hedge funds are viewed as delayed, old financial vehicles of an era lost to time. Although there are In excess of 8,000 hedge funds trading currently, this site aim at the moguls of this group, around 525 funds. It is widely held that this group controls most of the hedge fund industry’s total capital, and by monitoring their best investments, we’ve discovered a number of investment strategies that have historically outstripped the market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points a 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 a sample of our picks).

Just as crucial, bullish insider trading activity is another way to analyze the world of equities. As the old adage goes: there are plenty of reasons for a bullish insider to sell shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would behave bullishly. Various empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this strategy if piggybackers understand what to do (learn more here).

What’s more, we’re going to examine the recent info surrounding Superior Energy Services, Inc. (NYSE:SPN).

Hedge fund activity in Superior Energy Services, Inc. (NYSE:SPN)

At the end of the second quarter, a total of 24 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 9% from the first quarter. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes considerably.

Out of the hedge funds we follow, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management had the biggest position in Superior Energy Services, Inc. (NYSE:SPN), worth close to $32.7 million, comprising 0.1% of its total 13F portfolio. On Millennium Management’s heels is Dreman Value Management, managed by David Dreman, which held a $27.7 million position; 0.9% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining hedgies that are bullish include Thomas E. Claugus’s GMT Capital, Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management and Don Morgan’s Brigade Capital.

Consequently, certain money managers have been driving this bullishness. Millennium Management, managed by Israel Englander, established the largest position in Superior Energy Services, Inc. (NYSE:SPN). Millennium Management had 32.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. David Dreman’s Dreman Value Management also made a $27.7 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new SPN positions are Thomas E. Claugus’s GMT Capital, Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management, and Don Morgan’s Brigade Capital.

What have insiders been doing with Superior Energy Services, Inc. (NYSE:SPN)?

Bullish insider trading is best served when the primary stock in question has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest half-year time period, Superior Energy Services, Inc. (NYSE:SPN) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

We’ll also examine the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Superior Energy Services, Inc. (NYSE:SPN). These stocks are Core Laboratories N.V. (NYSE:CLB), RPC, Inc. (NYSE:RES), Dril-Quip, Inc. (NYSE:DRQ), MDU Resources Group Inc (NYSE:MDU), and Oil States International, Inc. (NYSE:OIS). All of these stocks are in the oil & gas equipment & services industry and their market caps are closest to SPN’s market cap.

Using the returns shown by Insider Monkey’s strategies, regular investors must always track hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Superior Energy Services, Inc. (NYSE:SPN) is an important part of this process.

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