Do Hedge Funds and Insiders Love C.R. Bard, Inc. (BCR)?

Is C.R. Bard, Inc. (NYSE:BCR) a buy?

Now, according to many of your peers, hedge funds are viewed as useless, old financial tools of a forgotten age. Although there are In excess of 8,000 hedge funds trading currently, this site aim at the crème de la crème of this club, about 525 funds. Analysts calculate that this group controls most of all hedge funds’ total capital, and by paying attention to their highest performing stock picks, we’ve spotted a number of investment strategies that have historically outstripped the market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points annually for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve started sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have trumped the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (see all of our picks from August).

Equally as useful, positive insider trading sentiment is a second way to analyze the financial markets. As the old adage goes: there are a number of incentives for an insider to downsize shares of his or her company, but only one, very simple reason why they would behave bullishly. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this method if “monkeys” understand what to do (learn more here).

C.R. Bard, Inc.

Furthermore, it’s important to analyze the recent info for C.R. Bard, Inc. (NYSE:BCR).

How are hedge funds trading C.R. Bard, Inc. (NYSE:BCR)?

Heading into Q3, a total of 24 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -11% from the first quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes substantially.

Out of the hedge funds we follow, Yacktman Asset Management, managed by Donald Yacktman, holds the biggest position in C.R. Bard, Inc. (NYSE:BCR). Yacktman Asset Management has a $1.0839 billion position in the stock, comprising 5.1% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by David Blood and Al Gore of Generation Investment Management, with a $264.3 million position; the fund has 5.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other hedge funds with similar optimism include Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, Jeffrey Ubben’s ValueAct Capital and Andrew J. M. Spokes’s Farallon Capital.

As C.R. Bard, Inc. (NYSE:BCR) has witnessed dropping sentiment from the smart money’s best and brightest, logic holds that there is a sect of funds that slashed their positions entirely last quarter. Intriguingly, Jeffrey Ubben’s ValueAct Capital dropped the largest investment of all the hedgies we key on, comprising an estimated $364.5 million in stock. Neil Chriss’s fund, Hutchin Hill Capital, also sold off its stock, about $3 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 3 funds last quarter.

How have insiders been trading C.R. Bard, Inc. (NYSE:BCR)?

Bullish insider trading is at its handiest when the company in focus has experienced transactions within the past six months. Over the latest 180-day time period, C.R. Bard, Inc. (NYSE:BCR) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and 16 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

We’ll go over the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to C.R. Bard, Inc. (NYSE:BCR). These stocks are Becton, Dickinson and Co. (NYSE:BDX), Mindray Medical International Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:MR), The Cooper Companies, Inc. (NYSE:COO), DENTSPLY International Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY), and CareFusion Corporation (NYSE:CFN). This group of stocks belong to the medical instruments & supplies industry and their market caps resemble BCR’s market cap.

Company Name # of Hedge Funds # of Insiders Buying # of Insiders Selling
Becton, Dickinson and Co. (NYSE:BDX) 27 0 9
Mindray Medical International Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:MR) 11 0 0
The Cooper Companies, Inc. (NYSE:COO) 27 0 13
DENTSPLY International Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY) 10 0 4
CareFusion Corporation (NYSE:CFN) 34 0 7

Using the returns explained by the previously mentioned research, regular investors must always watch hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and C.R. Bard, Inc. (NYSE:BCR) applies perfectly to this mantra.

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