Now, according to many market players, hedge funds are viewed as bloated, old financial tools of an era lost to time. Although there are over 8,000 hedge funds trading today, Insider Monkey looks at the masters of this club, close to 525 funds. It is widely held that this group controls most of the smart money’s total assets, and by keeping an eye on their highest performing equity investments, we’ve unsheathed a few investment strategies that have historically outstripped Mr. Market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy beat 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 (find the details here).
Just as necessary, positive insider trading activity is a second way to look at the stock market universe. Obviously, there are many reasons for a corporate insider to drop shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would behave bullishly. Several empirical studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this strategy if investors know where to look (learn more here).
Furthermore, let’s study the newest info for Alliant Techsystems Inc. (NYSE:ATK).
How are hedge funds trading Alliant Techsystems Inc. (NYSE:ATK)?
In preparation for the third quarter, a total of 20 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 18% from the previous quarter. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings substantially.
As aggregate interest spiked, specific money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. First Eagle Investment Management, managed by Matt McLennan, assembled the most outsized position in Alliant Techsystems Inc. (NYSE:ATK). First Eagle Investment Management had 432.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. David Cohen and Harold Levy’s Iridian Asset Management also made a $101 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management, David Dreman’s Dreman Value Management, and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw.
What do corporate executives and insiders think about Alliant Techsystems Inc. (NYSE:ATK)?
Bullish insider trading is most useful when the company in question has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the last half-year time period, Alliant Techsystems Inc. (NYSE:ATK) 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 Alliant Techsystems Inc. (NYSE:ATK). These stocks are Moog Inc (NYSE:MOG-A), Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc (NYSE:HII), CAE, Inc. (USA) (NYSE:CAE), HEICO Corporation (NYSE:HEI), and Esterline Technologies Corporation (NYSE:ESL). This group of stocks are the members of the aerospace/defense products & services industry and their market caps are closest to ATK’s market cap.
| Company Name | # of Hedge Funds | # of Insiders Buying | # of Insiders Selling |
| Moog Inc (NYSE:MOG-A) | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc (NYSE:HII) | 18 | 0 | 0 |
| CAE, Inc. (USA) (NYSE:CAE) | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| HEICO Corporation (NYSE:HEI) | 15 | 0 | 0 |
| Esterline Technologies Corporation (NYSE:ESL) | 19 | 0 | 0 |
Using the results explained by the previously mentioned analyses, regular investors should always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Alliant Techsystems Inc. (NYSE:ATK) is an important part of this process.
