Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (WMT)

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) was in 52 hedge funds’ portfolio at the end of March. WMT investors should pay attention to a decrease in enthusiasm from smart money recently. There were 57 hedge funds in our database with WMT holdings at the end of the previous quarter.

At the moment, there are tons of methods investors can use to watch their holdings. A duo of the most innovative are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best money managers can trounce the S&P 500 by a healthy margin (see just how much).

Equally as important, positive insider trading activity is another way to parse down the investments you’re interested in. There are plenty of stimuli for an insider to drop shares of his or her company, but only one, very simple reason why they would buy. Several academic studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this tactic if you understand what to do (learn more here).

With all of this in mind, we’re going to take a gander at the key action surrounding Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT).

Hedge fund activity in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT)

Heading into Q2, a total of 52 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of -9% from one quarter earlier.

Since Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) has experienced declining sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s easy to see that there was a specific group of hedge funds that slashed their entire stakes heading into Q2. Interestingly, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital sold off the biggest investment of the 450+ funds we watch, worth an estimated $92.3 million in stock.. James Crichton and Adam Weiss’s fund, Scout Capital Management, also dumped its call options., about $68.2 million worth. These moves are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 5 funds heading into Q2.

What do corporate executives and insiders think about Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT)?

Insider trading activity, especially when it’s bullish, is most useful when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last 180-day time period, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and 4 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s go over hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT). These stocks are Family Dollar Stores, Inc. (NYSE:FDO), Dollar Tree, Inc. (NASDAQ:DLTR), Dollar General Corp. (NYSE:DG), Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT), and Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ:COST). All of these stocks are in the discount, variety stores industry and their market caps match WMT’s market cap.