Hedge Funds Aren’t Crazy About Sourcefire, Inc. (FIRE) Anymore

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Is it smart to be bullish on Sourcefire, Inc. (NASDAQ:FIRE)?

To many of your fellow readers, hedge funds are seen as delayed, outdated investment tools of a period lost to current times. Although there are over 8,000 hedge funds in operation currently, this site looks at the leaders of this club, around 525 funds. It is widely held that this group oversees the lion’s share of the smart money’s total capital, and by paying attention to their highest quality 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 outpaced the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per annum 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 beaten the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (find the details here).

Just as key, positive insider trading sentiment is another way to look at the world of equities. Obviously, there are a variety of motivations for a corporate insider to cut shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would behave bullishly. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this method if shareholders know what to do (learn more here).

What’s more, it’s important to analyze the newest info for Sourcefire, Inc. (NASDAQ:FIRE).

How have hedgies been trading Sourcefire, Inc. (NASDAQ:FIRE)?

At the end of the second quarter, a total of 13 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -35% from the first quarter. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings meaningfully.

Sourcefire, Inc. (NASDAQ:FIRE)When using filings from the hedgies we track, Columbus Circle Investors, managed by Donald Chiboucis, holds the largest position in Sourcefire, Inc. (NASDAQ:FIRE). Columbus Circle Investors has a $57 million position in the stock, comprising 0.5% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Ken Griffin of Citadel Investment Group, with a $18.9 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining peers with similar optimism include Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, Guru Ramakrishnan’s Meru Capital and Brian Ashford-Russell and Tim Woolley’s Polar Capital.

Due to the fact Sourcefire, Inc. (NASDAQ:FIRE) has witnessed dropping sentiment from the top-tier hedge fund industry, logic holds that there is a sect of hedgies who sold off their positions entirely heading into Q2. Interestingly, Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management sold off the biggest investment of all the hedgies we track, comprising close to $21.5 million in call options., and Wojciech Uzdelewicz of Espalier Global Management was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $7.4 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 7 funds heading into Q2.

What have insiders been doing with Sourcefire, Inc. (NASDAQ:FIRE)?

Insider buying is particularly usable when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last 180-day time period, Sourcefire, Inc. (NASDAQ:FIRE) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

We’ll also take a look at the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Sourcefire, Inc. (NASDAQ:FIRE). These stocks are Intralinks Holdings Inc (NYSE:IL), KEYW Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:KEYW), AsiaInfo-Linkage, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASIA), Mantech International Corp (NASDAQ:MANT), and Brady Corp (NYSE:BRC). All of these stocks are in the security software & services industry and their market caps are similar to FIRE’s market cap.

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