Is Banco Santander, S.A. (ADR) (SAN) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds?

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Should Banco Santander, S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:SAN) investors track the following data?

In today’s marketplace, there are a multitude of methods shareholders can use to watch their holdings. A pair of the most useful are hedge fund and insider trading interest. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best fund managers can outpace the S&P 500 by a superb amount (see just how much).

Equally as key, optimistic insider trading sentiment is a second way to look at the world of equities. As the old adage goes: there are a number of incentives for an upper level exec to drop shares of his or her company, but only one, very obvious reason why they would buy. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this strategy if you know where to look (learn more here).

Thus, we’re going to analyze the newest info surrounding Banco Santander, S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:SAN).

Banco Santander, S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:SAN)

How have hedgies been trading Banco Santander, S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:SAN)?

Heading into Q3, a total of 16 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -6% from the previous quarter. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes meaningfully.

When using filings from the hedgies we track, Fisher Asset Management, managed by Ken Fisher, holds the largest position in Banco Santander, S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:SAN). Fisher Asset Management has a $18.6 million position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is D. E. Shaw of D E Shaw, with a $14.1 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining peers that hold long positions include John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors, Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital.

As Banco Santander, S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:SAN) has witnessed declining interest from upper-tier hedge fund managers, logic holds that there exists a select few hedge funds that elected to cut their entire stakes last quarter. Interestingly, Robert Joseph Caruso’s Select Equity Group said goodbye to the largest position of all the hedgies we monitor, totaling an estimated $4.3 million in call options., and Richard C. Patton of Courage Capital was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $2 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 1 funds last quarter.

What have insiders been doing with Banco Santander, S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:SAN)?

Bullish insider trading is particularly usable when the primary stock in question has experienced transactions within the past six months. Over the last six-month time period, Banco Santander, S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:SAN) 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 Banco Santander, S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:SAN). These stocks are Westpac Banking Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:WBK), Lloyds Banking Group PLC (ADR) (NYSE:LYG), Barclays PLC (ADR) (NYSE:BCS), UBS AG (USA) (NYSE:UBS), and Itau Unibanco Holding SA (ADR) (NYSE:ITUB). All of these stocks are in the foreign money center banks industry and their market caps are similar to SAN’s market cap.

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