Lifevantage Corporation (LFVN), USANA Health Sciences, Inc. (USNA): Hedge Funds Aren’t Crazy About Perrigo Company (PRGO) Anymore

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Perrigo Company (NASDAQ:PRGO) was in 16 hedge funds’ portfolio at the end of December. PRGO investors should pay attention to a decrease in support from the world’s most elite money managers of late. There were 19 hedge funds in our database with PRGO holdings at the end of the previous quarter.

Perrigo Company (NASDAQ:PRGO)If you’d ask most shareholders, hedge funds are seen as slow, outdated financial tools of years past. While there are more than 8000 funds in operation at present, we choose to focus on the top tier of this club, about 450 funds. It is widely believed that this group oversees most of the hedge fund industry’s total capital, and by watching their best picks, we have come up with a number of investment strategies that have historically outpaced Mr. Market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed 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 beaten the S&P 500 index by 24 percentage points in 7 months (check out a sample of our picks).

Equally as beneficial, bullish insider trading sentiment is another way to parse down the investments you’re interested in. Just as you’d expect, there are lots of reasons for an upper level exec to cut shares of his or her company, but only one, very simple reason why they would initiate a purchase. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this strategy if “monkeys” know where to look (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, it’s important to take a peek at the latest action encompassing Perrigo Company (NASDAQ:PRGO).

Hedge fund activity in Perrigo Company (NASDAQ:PRGO)

In preparation for this year, a total of 16 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of -16% from the previous quarter. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes substantially.

Of the funds we track, Robert Joseph Caruso’s Select Equity Group had the largest position in Perrigo Company (NASDAQ:PRGO), worth close to $108.3 million, accounting for 1.7% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Sectoral Asset Management, managed by Jerome Pfund and Michael Sjostrom, which held a $73.1 million position; the fund has 2.6% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other hedgies that are bullish include Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies and Samuel Isaly’s OrbiMed Advisors.

Judging by the fact that Perrigo Company (NASDAQ:PRGO) has witnessed declining sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, logic holds that there lies a certain “tier” of hedge funds that decided to sell off their full holdings heading into 2013. At the top of the heap, Louis Navellier’s Navellier & Associates dropped the largest investment of all the hedgies we monitor, comprising an estimated $70.3 million in stock., and Jacob Gottlieb of Visium Asset Management was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $22.7 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 3 funds heading into 2013.

What do corporate executives and insiders think about Perrigo Company (NASDAQ:PRGO)?

Insider buying is particularly usable when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the latest 180-day time frame, Perrigo Company (NASDAQ:PRGO) has experienced 1 unique insiders purchasing, and 10 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s check out hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Perrigo Company (NASDAQ:PRGO). These stocks are Lifevantage Corporation (NASDAQ:LFVN), USANA Health Sciences, Inc. (NYSE:USNA), Auxilium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:AUXL), Prestige Brands Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:PBH), and Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE:HLF). This group of stocks are in the drug related products industry and their market caps match PRGO’s market cap.

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