This Metric Says You Are Smart to Sell AsiaInfo-Linkage, Inc. (ASIA)

AsiaInfo-Linkage, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASIA) shareholders have witnessed a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds lately.

In the financial world, there are many indicators market participants can use to monitor their holdings. Some of the best are hedge fund and insider trading activity. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top fund managers can trounce the S&P 500 by a healthy margin (see just how much).

Just as integral, bullish insider trading sentiment is another way to break down the investments you’re interested in. There are many motivations for an executive to drop shares of his or her company, but only one, very obvious reason why they would initiate a purchase. Various empirical studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this method if “monkeys” know what to do (learn more here).

Consequently, we’re going to take a peek at the latest action regarding AsiaInfo-Linkage, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASIA).

How have hedgies been trading AsiaInfo-Linkage, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASIA)?

Heading into Q2, a total of 7 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of -30% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings substantially.

According to our comprehensive database, Frank Brosens’s Taconic Capital had the biggest position in AsiaInfo-Linkage, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASIA), worth close to $11.9 million, comprising 0.4% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Pine River Capital Management, managed by Brian Taylor, which held a $5.5 million position; the fund has 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other hedgies that hold long positions include Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw and Phil Frohlich’s Prescott Group Capital Management.

Because AsiaInfo-Linkage, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASIA) has experienced declining sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, logic holds that there exists a select few money managers who were dropping their full holdings last quarter. Intriguingly, James Dinan’s York Capital Management said goodbye to the largest position of the 450+ funds we monitor, totaling close to $2 million in stock.. Jim Simons’s fund, Renaissance Technologies, also dumped its stock, about $0.2 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 3 funds last quarter.

How are insiders trading AsiaInfo-Linkage, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASIA)?

Insider buying is particularly usable when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the last half-year time frame, AsiaInfo-Linkage, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASIA) has experienced 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 AsiaInfo-Linkage, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASIA). These stocks are Intralinks Holdings Inc (NYSE:IL), Sourcefire, Inc. (NASDAQ:FIRE), Brady Corp (NYSE:BRC), KEYW Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:KEYW), and Mantech International Corp (NASDAQ:MANT). This group of stocks are the members of the security software & services industry and their market caps resemble ASIA’s market cap.

With the results shown by our studies, retail investors must always monitor hedge fund and insider trading activity, and AsiaInfo-Linkage, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASIA) is no exception.

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