Ambassadors Group, Inc. (EPAX): Hedge Funds and Insiders Are Bearish, What Should You Do?

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Ambassadors Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:EPAX)Is Ambassadors Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:EPAX) going to take off soon? Investors who are in the know are taking a bearish view. The number of long hedge fund bets were cut by 1 lately.

In today’s marketplace, there are dozens of methods shareholders can use to analyze Mr. Market. A duo 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 outperform their index-focused peers by a significant margin (see just how much).

Just as integral, positive insider trading activity is a second way to break down the stock market universe. Just as you’d expect, there are many reasons for an upper level exec to downsize shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would behave bullishly. Several empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this strategy if shareholders know what to do (learn more here).

Now, it’s important to take a look at the latest action surrounding Ambassadors Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:EPAX).

How have hedgies been trading Ambassadors Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:EPAX)?

Heading into 2013, a total of 9 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of -10% from the previous quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes meaningfully.

When looking at the hedgies we track, Gregory Bylinsky and Jefferson Gramm’s Bandera Partners had the biggest position in Ambassadors Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:EPAX), worth close to $11.9 million, accounting for 6.7% of its total 13F portfolio. On Bandera Partners’s heels is Stadium Capital Management, managed by Alexander Medina Seaver, which held a $5.1 million position; 1.2% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other hedge funds that hold long positions include Lisa Rapuano’s Lane Five Capital, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw.

Since Ambassadors Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:EPAX) has faced bearish sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s easy to see that there exists a select few money managers that decided to sell off their entire stakes at the end of the year. Intriguingly, Ben Levine, Andrew Manuel and Stefan Renold’s LMR Partners said goodbye to the largest position of the “upper crust” of funds we watch, valued at about $0.2 million in stock. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 1 funds at the end of the year.

What do corporate executives and insiders think about Ambassadors Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:EPAX)?

Insider purchases made by high-level executives is at its handiest when the company in focus has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the last 180-day time frame, Ambassadors Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:EPAX) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s check out hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Ambassadors Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:EPAX). These stocks are Cambium Learning Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:ABCD), Learning Tree International, Inc. (NASDAQ:LTRE), ATA Inc.(ADR) (NASDAQ:ATAI), and Ambow Education Holding Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:AMBO). This group of stocks belong to the education & training services industry and their market caps are similar to EPAX’s market cap.

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