If you were to ask many market players, hedge funds are assumed to be delayed, old investment tools of an era lost to time. Although there are over 8,000 hedge funds trading currently, Insider Monkey looks at the upper echelon of this club, around 525 funds. Analysts calculate that this group controls the majority of the hedge fund industry’s total assets, and by tracking their highest performing investments, we’ve found a few investment strategies that have historically outstripped the market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed 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 outclassed the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (find a sample of our picks).
Equally as crucial, optimistic insider trading activity is another way to analyze the world of equities. Just as you’d expect, there are many stimuli for an executive to sell shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would buy. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this tactic if piggybackers understand what to do (learn more here).
Furthermore, it’s important to examine the latest info for UTi Worldwide Inc. (NASDAQ:UTIW).
What does the smart money think about UTi Worldwide Inc. (NASDAQ:UTIW)?
Heading into Q3, a total of 11 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 0% from the first quarter. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially.
According to our 13F database, Claus Moller’s P2 Capital Partners had the biggest position in UTi Worldwide Inc. (NASDAQ:UTIW), worth close to $185.7 million, accounting for 29.8% of its total 13F portfolio. On P2 Capital Partners’s heels is Chuck Royce of Royce & Associates, with a $86.4 million position; the fund has 0.3% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining hedge funds that hold long positions include Joel Ramin’s 12 West Capital Management, Michael Lowenstein’s Kensico Capital and Chase Coleman and Feroz Dewan’s Tiger Global Management LLC.
As UTi Worldwide Inc. (NASDAQ:UTIW) has witnessed bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, logic holds that there lies a certain “tier” of funds that slashed their full holdings at the end of the second quarter. Intriguingly, James Dinan’s York Capital Management cut the biggest stake of the 450+ funds we key on, worth about $18.4 million in stock, and Steven Cohen of SAC Capital Advisors was right behind this move, as the fund cut about $0.7 million worth. These moves are important to note, as total hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).
Insider trading activity in UTi Worldwide Inc. (NASDAQ:UTIW)
Insider buying is most useful when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past six months. Over the latest half-year time period, UTi Worldwide Inc. (NASDAQ:UTIW) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
We’ll also review the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to UTi Worldwide Inc. (NASDAQ:UTIW). These stocks are Expeditors International of Washington (NASDAQ:EXPD), Air Transport Services Group Inc. (NASDAQ:ATSG), Roadrunner Transportation Systems Inc (NYSE:RRTS), Forward Air Corporation (NASDAQ:FWRD), and Hub Group Inc (NASDAQ:HUBG). This group of stocks belong to the air delivery & freight services industry and their market caps resemble UTIW’s market cap.