Accretive Health, Inc. (AH): Insiders Aren’t Crazy About It

Accretive Health, Inc. (NYSE:AH) was in 16 hedge funds’ portfolio at the end of March. AH has experienced a decrease in enthusiasm from smart money lately. There were 17 hedge funds in our database with AH positions at the end of the previous quarter.

Accretive Health, Inc. (NYSE:AH)

If you’d ask most market participants, hedge funds are seen as slow, old investment tools of yesteryear. While there are more than 8000 funds with their doors open today, we at Insider Monkey look at the upper echelon of this group, around 450 funds. It is widely believed that this group oversees the lion’s share of the hedge fund industry’s total asset base, and by watching their highest performing equity investments, we have found a few investment strategies that have historically outpaced the S&P 500 index. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points annually 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 outperformed the S&P 500 index by 23.3 percentage points in 8 months (explore the details and some picks here).

Just as beneficial, positive insider trading sentiment is a second way to parse down the marketplace. There are a variety of reasons for a corporate insider to drop 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 strategy if “monkeys” know where to look (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, we’re going to take a look at the latest action surrounding Accretive Health, Inc. (NYSE:AH).

Hedge fund activity in Accretive Health, Inc. (NYSE:AH)

At Q1’s end, a total of 16 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -6% from one quarter earlier. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings meaningfully.

Of the funds we track, Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management had the biggest position in Accretive Health, Inc. (NYSE:AH), worth close to $26.4 million, comprising 0.1% of its total 13F portfolio. On Adage Capital Management’s heels is Thomas Ellis and Todd Hammer of North Run Capital, with a $24.1 million position; 3% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other hedge funds that hold long positions include Brett Barakett’s Tremblant Capital, Edward Gilhuly and Scott Stuart’s Sageview Capital and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw.

Since Accretive Health, Inc. (NYSE:AH) has witnessed declining sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there was a specific group of money managers who were dropping their positions entirely heading into Q2. Interestingly, Stephen Mandel’s Lone Pine Capital cut the largest position of all the hedgies we key on, totaling an estimated $61.7 million in stock.. Bruce Kovner’s fund, Caxton Associates LP, also dropped its stock, about $4.7 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest fell by 1 funds heading into Q2.

Insider trading activity in Accretive Health, Inc. (NYSE:AH)

Insider trading activity, especially when it’s bullish, is particularly usable when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest half-year time period, Accretive Health, Inc. (NYSE:AH) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and 1 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also review hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Accretive Health, Inc. (NYSE:AH). These stocks are FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:FCN), Navigant Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:NCI), Exponent, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO), Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE), and Huron Consulting Group (NASDAQ:HURN). This group of stocks are the members of the management services industry and their market caps are similar to AH’s market cap.

Company Name # of Hedge Funds # of Insiders Buying # of Insiders Selling
FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:FCN) 7 0 1
Navigant Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:NCI) 14 0 3
Exponent, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO) 6 1 8
Wageworks Inc (NYSE:WAGE) 15 1 8
Huron Consulting Group (NASDAQ:HURN) 13 0 6

With the returns exhibited by our research, retail investors should always monitor hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Accretive Health, Inc. (NYSE:AH) is no exception.

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