Is Syngenta AG (ADR) (SYT) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds?

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What’s a smart Syngenta AG (ADR) (NYSE:SYT) investor to do?

To many traders, hedge funds are viewed as overrated, outdated financial vehicles of a period lost to current times. Although there are In excess of 8,000 hedge funds with their doors open currently, this site focuses on the aristocrats of this group, about 525 funds. It is widely held that this group oversees the majority of all hedge funds’ total assets, and by paying attention to their highest quality picks, we’ve figured out a few investment strategies that have historically outperformed Mr. Market. 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 started sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have trumped the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (find the details here).

Just as crucial, positive insider trading sentiment is another way to look at the financial markets. There are a variety of stimuli for an upper level exec to cut shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would initiate a purchase. Various academic studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this tactic if investors understand where to look (learn more here).

Syngenta AG (ADR) (NYSE:SYT)

Thus, we’re going to study the latest info about Syngenta AG (ADR) (NYSE:SYT).

How have hedgies been trading Syngenta AG (ADR) (NYSE:SYT)?

Heading into Q3, a total of 10 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 0% from the previous quarter. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings meaningfully.

According to our 13F database, Fisher Asset Management, managed by Ken Fisher, holds the biggest position in Syngenta AG (ADR) (NYSE:SYT). Fisher Asset Management has a $68 million position in the stock, comprising 0.2% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by J. Alan Reid, Jr. of Forward Management, with a $12.5 million position; the fund has 1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other peers with similar optimism include Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies and Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management.

Since Syngenta AG (ADR) (NYSE:SYT) has experienced bearish sentiment from the smart money’s best and brightest, logic holds that there lies a certain “tier” of hedge funds that slashed their full holdings in Q1. At the top of the heap, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group cut the biggest position of the “upper crust” of funds we watch, comprising close to $1.5 million in stock. Steven Cohen’s fund, SAC Capital Advisors, also said goodbye to its stock, about $0.3 million worth. These moves are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

How have insiders been trading Syngenta AG (ADR) (NYSE:SYT)?

Insider buying is particularly usable when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest half-year time period, Syngenta AG (ADR) (NYSE:SYT) has seen zero unique insiders buying, 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 Syngenta AG (ADR) (NYSE:SYT). These stocks are CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CF), Agrium Inc. (USA) (NYSE:AGU), Mosaic Co (NYSE:MOS), Monsanto Company (NYSE:MON), and Potash Corp./Saskatchewan (USA) (NYSE:POT). This group of stocks are the members of the agricultural chemicals industry and their market caps match SYT’s market cap.

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