Golden Star Resources Ltd. (USA) (GSS): Insiders Aren’t Crazy About It

Is Golden Star Resources Ltd. (USA) (NYSEAMEX:GSS) a healthy stock for your portfolio? Prominent investors are becoming less confident. The number of long hedge fund bets were trimmed by 1 recently.

If you’d ask most stock holders, hedge funds are assumed to be slow, old investment vehicles of the past. While there are over 8000 funds in operation at the moment, we at Insider Monkey choose to focus on the moguls of this club, about 450 funds. It is estimated that this group controls most of the smart money’s total asset base, and by watching their best equity investments, we have brought to light a number of investment strategies that have historically outpaced the market. 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 started sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have beaten the S&P 500 index by 23.3 percentage points in 8 months (explore the details and some picks here).

Golden Star Resources Ltd. (USA) (NYSEAMEX:GSS)Just as key, bullish insider trading sentiment is another way to break down the investments you’re interested in. As the old adage goes: there are many incentives for an upper level exec to cut shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would buy. Various academic studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this method if “monkeys” understand where to look (learn more here).

Now, it’s important to take a gander at the latest action surrounding Golden Star Resources Ltd. (USA) (NYSEAMEX:GSS).

What does the smart money think about Golden Star Resources Ltd. (USA) (NYSEAMEX:GSS)?

At Q1’s end, a total of 8 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -11% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes significantly.

According to our comprehensive database, Algert Coldiron Investors, managed by Peter Algert and Kevin Coldiron, holds the most valuable position in Golden Star Resources Ltd. (USA) (NYSEAMEX:GSS). Algert Coldiron Investors has a $0.9 million position in the stock, comprising 0.3% of its 13F portfolio. On Algert Coldiron Investors’s heels is Royce & Associates, managed by Chuck Royce, which held a $0.8 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other hedgies that are bullish include Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw.

Due to the fact that Golden Star Resources Ltd. (USA) (NYSEAMEX:GSS) has faced declining sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s easy to see that there lies a certain “tier” of hedgies who sold off their positions entirely heading into Q2. At the top of the heap, David Costen Haley’s HBK Investments sold off the largest position of the “upper crust” of funds we key on, comprising an estimated $0.1 million in stock.. Matthew Hulsizer’s fund, PEAK6 Capital Management, also said goodbye to its stock, about $0 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 1 funds heading into Q2.

How have insiders been trading Golden Star Resources Ltd. (USA) (NYSEAMEX:GSS)?

Insider buying is most useful when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the latest half-year time period, Golden Star Resources Ltd. (USA) (NYSEAMEX:GSS) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

With the returns shown by our time-tested strategies, retail investors must always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Golden Star Resources Ltd. (USA) (NYSEAMEX:GSS) applies perfectly to this mantra.

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