Is Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:LYV) a healthy stock for your portfolio? The smart money is turning less bullish. The number of long hedge fund positions were cut by 6 recently.
If you’d ask most traders, hedge funds are seen as underperforming, old investment vehicles of years past. While there are over 8000 funds trading at present, we at Insider Monkey choose to focus on the top tier of this club, around 450 funds. Most estimates calculate that this group has its hands on most of the hedge fund industry’s total asset base, and by monitoring their highest performing picks, we have identified a few investment strategies that have historically outpaced the S&P 500 index. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy beat the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per year for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve began to sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have outpaced the S&P 500 index by 25 percentage points in 6.5 month (check out a sample of our picks).
Equally as integral, optimistic insider trading sentiment is another way to break down the marketplace. As the old adage goes: there are a variety of reasons for a corporate insider to sell shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would behave bullishly. Several empirical studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this tactic if shareholders understand where to look (learn more here).
Keeping this in mind, it’s important to take a look at the recent action regarding Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:LYV).
What does the smart money think about Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:LYV)?
Heading into 2013, a total of 17 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of -26% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes significantly.
Because Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:LYV) has witnessed falling interest from the smart money, it’s easy to see that there is a sect of funds who were dropping their full holdings last quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Michael Lowenstein’s Kensico Capital dumped the biggest stake of the “upper crust” of funds we key on, worth close to $7 million in stock., and Israel Englander of Millennium Management was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $2 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 6 funds last quarter.
What do corporate executives and insiders think about Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:LYV)?
Insider trading activity, especially when it’s bullish, is best served when the company in question has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last six-month time period, Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:LYV) has experienced 2 unique insiders buying, and 1 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
With the results exhibited by the aforementioned tactics, retail investors should always monitor hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:LYV) is no exception.
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