BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) was in 29 hedge funds’ portfolio at the end of the second quarter of 2013. BBRY has seen a decrease in hedge fund sentiment of late. There were 32 hedge funds in our database with BBRY positions at the end of the previous quarter, and one can’t help but wonder with all of the “sale” drama that’s been circling the company of late, what the best thing to do is.
If you’d ask most stock holders, hedge funds are perceived as slow, outdated investment vehicles of the past. While there are greater than 8000 funds trading at the moment, we look at the bigwigs of this club, close to 450 funds. Most estimates calculate that this group oversees the lion’s share of the smart money’s total asset base, and by keeping an eye on their top picks, we have come up with a number of investment strategies that have historically outperformed the S&P 500 index. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per annum 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 (see all of our picks from August).
Just as integral, positive insider trading activity is another way to break down the investments you’re interested in. As the old adage goes: there are a number of stimuli for a corporate insider to drop shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would behave bullishly. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this strategy if shareholders know what to do (learn more here).
Consequently, let’s take a peek at the latest action surrounding BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY).
How are hedge funds trading BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY)?
In preparation for this quarter, a total of 29 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -9% from one quarter earlier. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings substantially.
According to our comprehensive database, Prem Watsa’s Fairfax Financial Holdings had the largest position in BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY), worth close to $541.5 million, accounting for 21.8% of its total 13F portfolio. On Fairfax Financial Holdings’s heels is Viking Global, managed by Andreas Halvorsen, which held a $147.1 million position; 0.8% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining hedgies with similar optimism include Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management and Donald Yacktman’s Yacktman Asset Management.
Since BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) has experienced bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, it’s safe to say that there lies a certain “tier” of fund managers that decided to sell off their full holdings last quarter. Interestingly, Douglas Dillard Jr. and Raj D. Venkatesan’s Standard Pacific Capital dumped the biggest stake of all the hedgies we key on, comprising an estimated $21.5 million in stock., and Lee Hobson of Highside Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $5.1 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest fell by 3 funds last quarter.
How are insiders trading BlackBerry (NASDAQ:BBRY)?
Bullish insider trading is particularly usable when the company in question has experienced transactions within the past six months. Over the last 180-day time frame, BlackBerry (NASDAQ:BBRY) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
With the returns shown by Insider Monkey’s studies, everyday investors must always monitor hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) applies perfectly to this mantra.
