This Metric Says You Are Smart to Sell Quad/Graphics, Inc. (QUAD)

Should Quad/Graphics, Inc. (NYSE:QUAD) investors track the following data?

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Equally as useful, bullish insider trading activity is another way to analyze the financial markets. As the old adage goes: there are many motivations for an insider to downsize shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would buy. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this method if piggybackers understand where to look (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, let’s study the latest info about Quad/Graphics, Inc. (NYSE:QUAD).

Hedge fund activity in Quad/Graphics, Inc. (NYSE:QUAD)

At Q2’s end, a total of 10 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -9% from the first quarter. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes considerably.

According to our 13F database, Mark T. Gallogly’s Centerbridge Partners had the most valuable position in Quad/Graphics, Inc. (NYSE:QUAD), worth close to $55 million, comprising 5.5% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is John M. Angelo and Michael L. Gordon of Angelo Gordon & Co, with a $53.1 million position; 3.8% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other peers that hold long positions include Ron Gutfleish’s Elm Ridge Capital, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw.

Due to the fact Quad/Graphics, Inc. (NYSE:QUAD) has faced a fall in interest from upper-tier hedge fund managers, logic holds that there were a few hedge funds that elected to cut their positions entirely in Q1. At the top of the heap, Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp dumped the largest position of all the hedgies we watch, valued at close to $0.3 million in stock. Gregory Fraser Rudolph Kluiber and Timothy Kroch’s fund, GRT Capital Partners, also dumped its stock, about $0.3 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 1 funds in Q1.

What do corporate executives and insiders think about Quad/Graphics, Inc. (NYSE:QUAD)?

Bullish insider trading is best served when the company in focus has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the last six-month time frame, Quad/Graphics, Inc. (NYSE:QUAD) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, 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 Quad/Graphics, Inc. (NYSE:QUAD). These stocks are ABM Industries, Inc. (NYSE:ABM), ExlService Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXLS), NetSpend Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:NTSP), TeleTech Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTEC), and Atlas Resource Partners, L.P. (NYSE:ARP). This group of stocks belong to the business services industry and their market caps resemble QUAD’s market cap.

Using the returns demonstrated by Insider Monkey’s strategies, average investors should always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Quad/Graphics, Inc. (NYSE:QUAD) is no exception.

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