This Metric Says You Are Smart to Sell American Software, Inc. (AMSWA)

American Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMSWA) investors should be aware of a decrease in support from the world’s most elite money managers in recent months.

If you’d ask most market participants, hedge funds are viewed as unimportant, old financial vehicles of years past. While there are greater than 8000 funds in operation at present, we at Insider Monkey look at the masters of this club, close to 450 funds. It is estimated that this group controls most of all hedge funds’ total capital, and by tracking their highest performing equity investments, we have unearthed a number of investment strategies that have historically outpaced the S&P 500 index. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points annually 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 trumped the S&P 500 index by 24 percentage points in 7 months (check out a sample of our picks).

Equally as key, optimistic insider trading activity is another way to break down the stock market universe. As the old adage goes: there are a variety of stimuli for an insider to sell shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would behave bullishly. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this method if shareholders understand what to do (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, we’re going to take a peek at the latest action surrounding American Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMSWA).

How have hedgies been trading American Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMSWA)?

At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 8 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 0% from the third quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially.

When looking at the hedgies we track, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies had the biggest position in American Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMSWA), worth close to $10.2 million, comprising less than 0.1%% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Chuck Royce of Royce & Associates, with a $2.9 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other hedgies that hold long positions include Andy Redleaf’s Whitebox Advisors, Peter Algert and Kevin Coldiron’s Algert Coldiron Investors and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.

How are insiders trading American Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMSWA)?

Bullish insider trading is best served when the company in focus has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last half-year time period, American Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMSWA) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and 4 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also review hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to American Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMSWA). These stocks are Unwired Planet Inc (NASDAQ:UPIP), QAD Inc. (NASDAQ:QADA), Market Leader Inc (NASDAQ:LEDR), Agilysys, Inc. (NASDAQ:AGYS), and Zix Corporation (NASDAQ:ZIXI). This group of stocks belong to the application software industry and their market caps are similar to AMSWA’s market cap.

With the results exhibited by Insider Monkey’s time-tested strategies, everyday investors should always watch hedge fund and insider trading activity, and American Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMSWA) is an important part of this process.

Click here to learn why you should track hedge funds