To the average investor, there are dozens of gauges market participants can use to watch the equity markets. Two of the most useful are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the top investment managers can trounce their index-focused peers by a healthy amount (see just how much).
Equally as useful, bullish insider trading sentiment is another way to look at the world of equities. There are a number of reasons for a corporate insider to get rid of 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 investors know what to do (learn more here).
Thus, let’s examine the recent info for Interpublic Group of Companies Inc (NYSE:IPG).
What does the smart money think about Interpublic Group of Companies Inc (NYSE:IPG)?
Heading into Q3, a total of 22 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of -19% from the previous quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings meaningfully.
According to our 13F database, John W. Rogers’s Ariel Investments had the most valuable position in Interpublic Group of Companies Inc (NYSE:IPG), worth close to $240.9 million, accounting for 3.9% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Iridian Asset Management, managed by David Cohen and Harold Levy, which held a $202.2 million position; 2.6% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other peers that are bullish include Richard S. Pzena’s Pzena Investment Management, Robert Rodriguez and Steven Romick’s First Pacific Advisors LLC and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.
Judging by the fact that Interpublic Group of Companies Inc (NYSE:IPG) has experienced dropping sentiment from upper-tier hedge fund managers, we can see that there is a sect of money managers who were dropping their full holdings at the end of the second quarter. Interestingly, Quincy Lee’s Ancient Art (Teton Capital) dumped the largest investment of the 450+ funds we key on, totaling about $10.1 million in call options.. Daniel S. Och’s fund, OZ Management, also said goodbye to its call options., about $8.1 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 5 funds at the end of the second quarter.
How are insiders trading Interpublic Group of Companies Inc (NYSE:IPG)?
Insider buying is most useful when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the last six-month time frame, Interpublic Group of Companies Inc (NYSE:IPG) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
We’ll also take a look at the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Interpublic Group of Companies Inc (NYSE:IPG). These stocks are Monster Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE:MWW), WPP PLC (ADR) (NASDAQ:WPPGY), Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE:OMC), Focus Media Holding Limited (ADR) (NASDAQ:FMCN), and Lamar Advertising Co (NASDAQ:LAMR). This group of stocks are the members of the advertising agencies industry and their market caps resemble IPG’s market cap.
