This Metric Says You Are Smart to Sell Seacor Holdings, Inc. (CKH)

Is Seacor Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CKH) a good investment?

In the eyes of many of your peers, hedge funds are seen as useless, outdated financial vehicles of a forgotten age. Although there are In excess of 8,000 hedge funds in operation in present day, this site focuses on the elite of this group, around 525 funds. Analysts calculate that this group oversees the majority of all hedge funds’ total assets, and by watching their highest quality investments, we’ve formulated a few investment strategies that have historically outpaced the broader indices. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outpaced the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points a year 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 33 percentage points in 11 months (see all of our picks from August).

Equally as useful, bullish insider trading sentiment is a second way to look at the marketplace. Just as you’d expect, there are many motivations for an executive to get rid of shares of his or her company, but only one, very simple reason why they would initiate a purchase. Various empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this strategy if investors know what to do (learn more here).

Furthermore, we’re going to analyze the latest info about Seacor Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CKH).

How have hedgies been trading Seacor Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CKH)?

At the end of the second quarter, a total of 14 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -13% from the previous quarter. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes considerably.

When using filings from the hedgies we track, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates had the largest position in Seacor Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CKH), worth close to $142.4 million, comprising 0.4% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Charles de Vaulx of International Value Advisers, with a $49.5 million position; the fund has 1.3% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining hedge funds that are bullish include Martin Whitman’s Third Avenue Management, Michael Lowenstein’s Kensico Capital and Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management.

Because Seacor Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CKH) has faced declining interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s easy to see that there is a sect of fund managers who sold off their positions entirely last quarter. Interestingly, Manish Chopra’s Tiger Veda dumped the biggest investment of the “upper crust” of funds we monitor, worth about $7.2 million in stock, and David Costen Haley of HBK Investments was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $1 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as total hedge fund interest fell by 2 funds last quarter.

How are insiders trading Seacor Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CKH)?

Bullish insider trading is at its handiest when the company in question has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest six-month time period, Seacor Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CKH) has seen 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 Seacor Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CKH). These stocks are Scorpio Tankers Inc. (NYSE:STNG), Golar LNG Partners LP (NASDAQ:GMLP), Costamare Inc (NYSE:CMRE), Seaspan Corporation (NYSE:SSW), and Ship Finance International Limited (NYSE:SFL). This group of stocks are the members of the shipping industry and their market caps match CKH’s market cap.

Using the returns demonstrated by Insider Monkey’s strategies, average investors should always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Seacor Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CKH) is no exception.

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