Apollo Global Management LLC (APO): Hedge Funds Are Bullish and Insiders Are Undecided, What Should You Do?

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Should Apollo Global Management LLC (NYSE:APO) investors track the following data?

To many of your peers, hedge funds are seen as bloated, old investment tools of a period lost to current times. Although there are over 8,000 hedge funds in operation currently, Insider Monkey looks at the leaders of this club, close to 525 funds. It is widely held that this group has its hands on the lion’s share of the smart money’s total capital, and by paying attention to their best investments, we’ve discovered a few investment strategies that have historically beaten the S&P 500. 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 started 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 a sample of our picks).

Just as key, positive insider trading sentiment is a second way to look at the world of equities. Obviously, there are a number of reasons for an insider to sell shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would initiate a purchase. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this tactic if shareholders understand where to look (learn more here).

Apollo Global Management LLC (NYSE:APO)

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s examine the newest info surrounding Apollo Global Management LLC (NYSE:APO).

How have hedgies been trading Apollo Global Management LLC (NYSE:APO)?

Heading into Q3, a total of 13 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 30% from the first quarter. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes meaningfully.

When using filings from the hedgies we track, Thomas E. Claugus’s GMT Capital had the largest position in Apollo Global Management LLC (NYSE:APO), worth close to $121.9 million, accounting for 2.8% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital Management, with a $30.1 million position; the fund has 0.6% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other hedgies that hold long positions include Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates, Paul Ruddock and Steve Heinz’s Lansdowne Partners and Martin Hughes’s Toscafund Asset Management.

With a general bullishness amongst the titans, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. GMT Capital, managed by Thomas E. Claugus, established the largest position in Apollo Global Management LLC (NYSE:APO). GMT Capital had 121.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Howard Marks’s Oaktree Capital Management also initiated a $30.1 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new APO investors: Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates, Paul Ruddock and Steve Heinz’s Lansdowne Partners, and Martin Hughes’s Toscafund Asset Management.

What do corporate executives and insiders think about Apollo Global Management LLC (NYSE:APO)?

Legal insider trading, particularly when it’s bullish, is best served when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last half-year time period, Apollo Global Management LLC (NYSE:APO) has experienced 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 Apollo Global Management LLC (NYSE:APO). These stocks are NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:NDAQ), Apollo Investment Corp. (NASDAQ:AINV), Ares Capital Corporation (NASDAQ:ARCC), A.F.P Provida SA (ADR) (NYSE:PVD), and CBOE Holdings, Inc (NASDAQ:CBOE). All of these stocks are in the diversified investments industry and their market caps resemble APO’s market cap.

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