Should West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. (NYSE:WST) investors track the following data?
In the eyes of many of your peers, hedge funds are viewed as overrated, old financial vehicles of a forgotten age. Although there are over 8,000 hedge funds trading currently, this site aim at the bigwigs of this group, about 525 funds. Analysts calculate that this group oversees the majority of the smart money’s total capital, and by keeping an eye on their highest quality picks, we’ve unearthed a number of investment strategies that have historically outstripped Mr. Market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy beat the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points annually 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 (find the details here).
Equally as crucial, bullish insider trading sentiment is another way to look at the investments you’re interested in. There are many motivations for an insider to sell shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would behave bullishly. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this strategy if piggybackers know where to look (learn more here).
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s study the latest info for West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. (NYSE:WST).
How have hedgies been trading West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. (NYSE:WST)?
In preparation for the third quarter, a total of 11 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -15% from the previous quarter. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes meaningfully.
Since West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. (NYSE:WST) has faced bearish sentiment from upper-tier hedge fund managers, it’s safe to say that there exists a select few money managers that slashed their positions entirely last quarter. Interestingly, Peter Rathjens Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital sold off the largest stake of the 450+ funds we monitor, comprising an estimated $5.8 million in stock, and Matthew Tewksbury of Stevens Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $0.9 million worth. These moves are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 2 funds last quarter.
How are insiders trading West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. (NYSE:WST)?
Insider buying made by high-level executives is at its handiest when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the last half-year time period, West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. (NYSE:WST) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
We’ll check out the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. (NYSE:WST). These stocks are Teleflex Incorporated (NYSE:TFX), HeartWare International Inc (NASDAQ:HTWR), Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:HRC), Haemonetics Corporation (NYSE:HAE), and Thoratec Corporation (NASDAQ:THOR). All of these stocks are in the medical instruments & supplies industry and their market caps match WST’s market cap.