Hedge Funds Are Crazy About Rackspace Hosting, Inc. (RAX)

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Is Rackspace Hosting, Inc. (NYSE:RAX) a buy?

Now, according to many of your peers, hedge funds are assumed to be overrated, old financial tools of an era lost to time. Although there are In excess of 8,000 hedge funds with their doors open currently, this site looks at the elite of this club, close to 525 funds. It is widely held that this group oversees the majority of all hedge funds’ total capital, and by monitoring their best stock picks, we’ve figured out a number of investment strategies that have historically beaten the S&P 500. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed 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 outclassed the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (find the details here).

Equally as key, bullish insider trading activity is another way to look at the world of equities. Just as you’d expect, there are plenty of motivations for an insider to drop shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would behave bullishly. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this method if investors know where to look (learn more here).

Furthermore, we’re going to study the latest info for Rackspace Hosting, Inc. (NYSE:RAX).

Rackspace Hosting, Inc. (NYSE:RAX)

What does the smart money think about Rackspace Hosting, Inc. (NYSE:RAX)?

At the end of the second quarter, a total of 26 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 44% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes considerably.

According to our 13F database, Coatue Management, managed by Philippe Laffont, holds the biggest position in Rackspace Hosting, Inc. (NYSE:RAX). Coatue Management has a $44.9 million position in the stock, comprising 0.5% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Alyeska Investment Group, managed by Anand Parekh, which held a $19.6 million position; 1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other hedgies that hold long positions include Clint Carlson’s Carlson Capital, Bill Miller’s Legg Mason Capital Management and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.

As aggregate interest spiked, particular hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. Coatue Management, managed by Philippe Laffont, established the largest position in Rackspace Hosting, Inc. (NYSE:RAX). Coatue Management had 44.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group also initiated a $19.6 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new RAX positions are Clint Carlson’s Carlson Capital, Bill Miller’s Legg Mason Capital Management, and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.

What have insiders been doing with Rackspace Hosting, Inc. (NYSE:RAX)?

Legal insider trading, particularly when it’s bullish, is at its handiest when the company in question has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the last half-year time period, Rackspace Hosting, Inc. (NYSE:RAX) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero 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 Rackspace Hosting, Inc. (NYSE:RAX). These stocks are NCR Corporation (NYSE:NCR), Xerox Corporation (NYSE:XRX), ServiceNow Inc (NYSE:NOW), Gartner Inc (NYSE:IT), and Computer Sciences Corporation (NYSE:CSC). This group of stocks are the members of the information technology services industry and their market caps are closest to RAX’s market cap.

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