This Metric Says You Are Smart to Sell Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation (GLDD)

Is it smart to be bullish on Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation (NASDAQ:GLDD)?

In the financial world, there are dozens of gauges market participants can use to monitor publicly traded companies. A pair of the most useful are hedge fund and insider trading activity. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the top fund managers can outclass the market by a solid margin (see just how much).

Just as crucial, optimistic insider trading activity is a second way to analyze the stock market universe. Obviously, there are a number of incentives for an upper level exec to downsize shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would initiate a purchase. Various academic studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this tactic if piggybackers understand what to do (learn more here).

Now that that’s out of the way, we’re going to study the recent info for Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation (NASDAQ:GLDD).

What have hedge funds been doing with Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation (NASDAQ:GLDD)?

Heading into Q3, a total of 14 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -18% from the first quarter. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes considerably.

When using filings from the hedgies we track, Moab Capital Partners, managed by Michael M. Rothenberg and David Sackler, holds the largest position in Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation (NASDAQ:GLDD). Moab Capital Partners has a $16.1 million position in the stock, comprising 9.6% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Phil Frohlich of Prescott Group Capital Management, with a $7.9 million position; the fund has 1.9% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other peers that hold long positions include Ken Grossman and Glen Schneider’s SG Capital Management, Roger Keith Long’s Otter Creek Management and Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management.

Since Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation (NASDAQ:GLDD) has witnessed dropping sentiment from the top-tier hedge fund industry, logic holds that there were a few fund managers that decided to sell off their positions entirely last quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies sold off the largest position of the “upper crust” of funds we monitor, totaling an estimated $1.6 million in stock, and Malcolm Fairbairn of Ascend Capital was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $1.3 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 3 funds last quarter.

Insider trading activity in Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation (NASDAQ:GLDD)

Legal insider trading, particularly when it’s bullish, is at its handiest when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the last half-year time period, Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation (NASDAQ:GLDD) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

We’ll go over the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation (NASDAQ:GLDD). These stocks are Argan, Inc. (NYSEAMEX:AGX), Dycom Industries, Inc. (NYSE:DY), Orion Marine Group, Inc. (NYSE:ORN), Layne Christensen Company (NASDAQ:LAYN), and Matrix Service Co (NASDAQ:MTRX). This group of stocks are in the heavy construction industry and their market caps are closest to GLDD’s market cap.

Using the returns explained by Insider Monkey’s tactics, average investors must always track hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation (NASDAQ:GLDD) applies perfectly to this mantra.

Discover how hedge fund piggybacking can benefit you