This Metric Says You Are Smart to Sell ICF International Inc (ICFI)

ICF International Inc (NASDAQ:ICFI) has seen a decrease in hedge fund interest in recent months.

If you’d ask most market participants, hedge funds are viewed as slow, outdated investment vehicles of years past. While there are more than 8000 funds with their doors open at present, we at Insider Monkey look at the bigwigs of this group, close to 450 funds. Most estimates calculate that this group has its hands on the lion’s share of the smart money’s total capital, and by monitoring their top picks, we have brought to light a number of investment strategies that have historically outperformed the S&P 500 index. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy beat 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 topped the S&P 500 index by 23.3 percentage points in 8 months (see the details here).

Equally as key, bullish insider trading activity is another way to break down the marketplace. There are lots of stimuli for an upper level exec to downsize shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would buy. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this method if “monkeys” understand where to look (learn more here).

Now, we’re going to take a gander at the key action encompassing ICF International Inc (NASDAQ:ICFI).

What does the smart money think about ICF International Inc (NASDAQ:ICFI)?

In preparation for this quarter, a total of 9 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of -10% from the first quarter. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes meaningfully.

When looking at the hedgies we track, Martin Whitman’s Third Avenue Management had the most valuable position in ICF International Inc (NASDAQ:ICFI), worth close to $44.3 million, accounting for 0.9% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Royce & Associates, managed by Chuck Royce, which held a $11.6 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other hedgies that are bullish include Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.

Because ICF International Inc (NASDAQ:ICFI) has experienced declining sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s safe to say that there is a sect of funds who sold off their full holdings last quarter. At the top of the heap, Ian Simm’s Impax Asset Management sold off the largest position of the 450+ funds we track, valued at an estimated $13.9 million in stock.. Andy Redleaf’s fund, Whitebox Advisors, also cut its stock, about $0.7 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 1 funds last quarter.

Insider trading activity in ICF International Inc (NASDAQ:ICFI)

Insider trading activity, especially when it’s bullish, is particularly usable when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest six-month time period, ICF International Inc (NASDAQ:ICFI) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and 2 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also review hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to ICF International Inc (NASDAQ:ICFI). These stocks are Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE), Exponent, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO), Navigant Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:NCI), Standard Parking Corporation (NASDAQ:STAN), and Resources Connection, Inc. (NASDAQ:RECN). This group of stocks are the members of the management services industry and their market caps are similar to ICFI’s market cap.