Mpg Office Trust Inc (MPG): Hedge Funds and Insiders Are Bearish, What Should You Do?: Select Income REIT (SIR), First Potomac Realty Trust (FPO)

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Mpg Office Trust Inc (NYSE:MPG) was in 8 hedge funds’ portfolio at the end of the fourth quarter of 2012. MPG shareholders have witnessed a decrease in support from the world’s most elite money managers lately. There were 8 hedge funds in our database with MPG holdings at the end of the previous quarter.

APPALOOSA MANAGEMENT LP

In the financial world, there are tons of gauges investors can use to monitor the equity markets. Some of the best are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite hedge fund managers can beat the broader indices by a healthy margin (see just how much).

Equally as key, bullish insider trading sentiment is another way to parse down the financial markets. Just as you’d expect, there are plenty of incentives for an executive to cut shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would buy. Various academic studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this method if “monkeys” understand where to look (learn more here).

With these “truths” under our belt, it’s important to take a glance at the latest action surrounding Mpg Office Trust Inc (NYSE:MPG).

What have hedge funds been doing with Mpg Office Trust Inc (NYSE:MPG)?

Heading into 2013, a total of 8 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 0% from one quarter earlier. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes significantly.

According to our comprehensive database, David Tepper’s Appaloosa Management LP had the most valuable position in Mpg Office Trust Inc (NYSE:MPG), worth close to $13 million, accounting for 0.3% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is York Capital Management, managed by James Dinan, which held a $6 million position; the fund has 0.2% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining hedge funds with similar optimism include Alex von Furstenberg and Mal Serure’s Arrow Capital Management, Brian J. Higgins’s King Street Capital and J. Alan Reid, Jr.’s Forward Management.

Seeing as Mpg Office Trust Inc (NYSE:MPG) has witnessed declining sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s safe to say that there were a few fund managers who were dropping their entire stakes at the end of the year. At the top of the heap, Ben Levine, Andrew Manuel and Stefan Renold’s LMR Partners said goodbye to the biggest stake of all the hedgies we key on, valued at an estimated $0 million in stock. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

What have insiders been doing with Mpg Office Trust Inc (NYSE:MPG)?

Insider trading activity, especially when it’s bullish, is most useful when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last 180-day time period, Mpg Office Trust Inc (NYSE:MPG) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also review hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Mpg Office Trust Inc (NYSE:MPG). These stocks are Select Income REIT (NYSE:SIR), First Potomac Realty Trust (NYSE:FPO), CoreSite Realty Corp (NYSE:COR), CapLease, Inc. (NYSE:LSE), and Gyrodyne Company of America, Inc. (NASDAQ:GYRO). This group of stocks are the members of the reit – office industry and their market caps resemble MPG’s market cap.

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