This Metric Says You Are Smart to Sell FactSet Research Systems Inc. (FDS) – DST Systems, Inc. (DST), Morningstar, Inc. (MORN)

Is FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS) a buy right now? Prominent investors are becoming less confident. The number of long hedge fund bets shrunk by 1 in recent months.

If you’d ask most investors, hedge funds are viewed as underperforming, old investment vehicles of the past. While there are more than 8000 funds trading at present, we at Insider Monkey hone in on the moguls of this group, around 450 funds. It is widely believed that this group has its hands on the majority of all hedge funds’ total asset base, and by monitoring their highest performing investments, we have unsheathed 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 per annum 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 outpaced the S&P 500 index by 24 percentage points in 7 months (check out a sample of our picks).

Just as beneficial, optimistic insider trading activity is a second way to break down the marketplace. Just as you’d expect, there are plenty of incentives for a corporate insider to drop shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would initiate a purchase. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this method if piggybackers know what to do (learn more here).

Now, it’s important to take a glance at the latest action regarding FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS).

What have hedge funds been doing with FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS)?

In preparation for this year, a total of 10 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -9% from the previous quarter. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes substantially.

Of the funds we track, Renaissance Technologies, managed by Jim Simons, holds the largest position in FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS). Renaissance Technologies has a $73 million position in the stock, comprising 0.2% of its 13F portfolio. On Renaissance Technologies’s heels is David Blood and Al Gore of Generation Investment Management, with a $63 million position; 1.5% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining hedgies with similar optimism include Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Charles Akre’s Akre Capital Management and Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates.

Because FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS) has faced a declination in interest from the smart money, we can see that there lies a certain “tier” of money managers that slashed their full holdings at the end of the year. Interestingly, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management cut the biggest investment of the “upper crust” of funds we monitor, comprising close to $5 million in stock., and Paul Tudor Jones of Tudor Investment Corp was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $0 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest fell by 1 funds at the end of the year.

How have insiders been trading FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS)?

Insider buying is at its handiest when the company in question has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the last six-month time frame, FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and 7 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s go over hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS). These stocks are IHS Inc. (NYSE:IHS), Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:BR), DST Systems, Inc. (NYSE:DST), Morningstar, Inc. (NASDAQ:MORN), and Dun & Bradstreet Corp (NYSE:DNB). This group of stocks belong to the information & delivery services industry and their market caps match FDS’s market cap.

With the results shown by our time-tested strategies, retail investors must always watch hedge fund and insider trading activity, and FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS) is an important part of this process.

Click here to learn why you should track hedge funds