Hedge Funds Are Dumping SK Telecom Co., Ltd. (ADR) (SKM)

Page 1 of 2

Is it smart to be bullish on SK Telecom Co., Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:SKM)?

In the financial world, there are dozens of gauges shareholders can use to monitor Mr. Market. A pair of the most useful are hedge fund and insider trading interest. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top money managers can beat the broader indices by a healthy margin (see just how much).

Equally as necessary, bullish insider trading activity is a second way to look at the stock market universe. As the old adage goes: there are many stimuli for an executive to get rid of shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would behave bullishly. Several empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this tactic if investors know what to do (learn more here).

SK Telecom Co., Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:SKM)

Furthermore, we’re going to analyze the latest info for SK Telecom Co., Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:SKM).

How are hedge funds trading SK Telecom Co., Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:SKM)?

At Q2’s end, a total of 9 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -40% 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 holdings considerably.

Since SK Telecom Co., Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:SKM) has witnessed dropping sentiment from the top-tier hedge fund industry, we can see that there exists a select few funds that elected to cut their positions entirely at the end of the second quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Charles de Vaulx’s International Value Advisers sold off the biggest stake of the “upper crust” of funds we track, comprising an estimated $45.6 million in stock. Kerr Neilson’s fund, Platinum Asset Management, also dropped its stock, about $6.3 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 6 funds at the end of the second quarter.

Insider trading activity in SK Telecom Co., Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:SKM)

Legal insider trading, particularly when it’s bullish, is particularly usable when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest half-year time frame, SK Telecom Co., Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:SKM) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

We’ll also examine the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to SK Telecom Co., Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:SKM). These stocks are Mobile TeleSystems OJSC (ADR) (NYSE:MBT), Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE:S), TIM Participacoes SA (ADR) (NYSE:TSU), VimpelCom Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:VIP), and Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. (ADR) (NYSE:TKC). This group of stocks belong to the wireless communications industry and their market caps resemble SKM’s market cap.

Page 1 of 2