Hedge Funds Are Buying Oracle Corporation (ORCL)

Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL) shareholders have witnessed an increase in hedge fund sentiment in recent months.

In the financial world, there are tons of gauges investors can use to track stocks. Some of the most under-the-radar are hedge fund and insider trading activity. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best fund managers can outperform the S&P 500 by a healthy amount (see just how much).

Equally as key, optimistic insider trading sentiment is another way to parse down the investments you’re interested in. Just as you’d expect, there are many incentives for an insider to cut shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would initiate a purchase. Various empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this strategy if shareholders know what to do (learn more here).

With all of this in mind, we’re going to take a glance at the latest action surrounding Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL).

What have hedge funds been doing with Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL)?

At the end of the first quarter, a total of 69 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 1% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes considerably.

According to our comprehensive database, Eagle Capital Management, managed by Boykin Curry, holds the largest position in Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL). Eagle Capital Management has a $967.2 million position in the stock, comprising 5.8% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Jean-Marie Eveillard of First Eagle Investment Management, with a $689.1 million position; the fund has 2.3% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other peers with similar optimism include Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management, Richard S. Pzena’s Pzena Investment Management and William von Mueffling’s Cantillon Capital Management.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. First Pacific Advisors LLC, managed by Robert Rodriguez and Steven Romick, initiated the biggest position in Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL). First Pacific Advisors LLC had 208.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Michael Karsch’s Karsch Capital Management also initiated a $40.5 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new ORCL positions are Tony Chedraoui’s Tyrus Capital, Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management, and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.

What have insiders been doing with Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL)?

Bullish insider trading is most useful when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the latest half-year time period, Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and 7 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s go over hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL). These stocks are Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ:INTU), Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ:ADBE), salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), and SAP AG (ADR) (NYSE:SAP). This group of stocks are in the application software industry and their market caps resemble ORCL’s market cap.