Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. (HE)

What’s a smart Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. (NYSE:HE) investor to do?

In the eyes of many traders, hedge funds are perceived as overrated, outdated investment tools of a forgotten age. Although there are In excess of 8,000 hedge funds with their doors open today, Insider Monkey looks at the aristocrats of this group, close to 525 funds. It is assumed that this group oversees the majority of all hedge funds’ total assets, and by keeping an eye on their best equity investments, we’ve uncovered a number of investment strategies that have historically outstripped Mr. Market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per 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 crucial, positive insider trading sentiment is another way to look at the investments you’re interested in. Obviously, there are lots of stimuli for an insider to drop shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would buy. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this method if you know what to do (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, let’s analyze the latest info for Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. (NYSE:HE).

How have hedgies been trading Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. (NYSE:HE)?

Heading into Q3, a total of 11 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 10% from the previous quarter. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings meaningfully.

Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. (NYSE:HE)According to our 13F database, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management had the most valuable position in Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. (NYSE:HE), worth close to $13.6 million, comprising less than 0.1%% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is D. E. Shaw of D E Shaw, with a $5.3 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other hedgies with similar optimism include Millennium Management Subsidiary’s Green Arrow Capital Management, Mario Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors and Charles Davidson’s Wexford Capital.

As industrywide interest increased, specific money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Millennium Management, managed by Israel Englander, initiated the most valuable position in Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. (NYSE:HE). Millennium Management had 13.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw also made a $5.3 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Millennium Management Subsidiary’s Green Arrow Capital Management, Mario Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors, and Charles Davidson’s Wexford Capital.

Insider trading activity in Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. (NYSE:HE)

Legal insider trading, particularly when it’s bullish, is particularly usable when the company in focus has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the last half-year time frame, Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. (NYSE:HE) has seen zero unique insiders buying, 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 Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. (NYSE:HE). These stocks are Great Plains Energy Incorporated (NYSE:GXP), Portland General Electric Company (NYSE:POR), IDACORP Inc (NYSE:IDA), Dynegy Inc. (NYSE:DYN), and Cleco Corporation (NYSE:CNL). All of these stocks are in the electric utilities industry and their market caps are similar to HE’s market cap.

Company Name # of Hedge Funds # of Insiders Buying # of Insiders Selling
Great Plains Energy Incorporated (NYSE:GXP) 18 0 0
Portland General Electric Company (NYSE:POR) 16 0 0
IDACORP Inc (NYSE:IDA) 11 0 0
Dynegy Inc. (NYSE:DYN) 15 0 0
Cleco Corporation (NYSE:CNL) 12 0 0

Using the returns shown by the previously mentioned studies, average investors must always track hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. (NYSE:HE) shareholders fit into this picture quite nicely.

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Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. (HE)