Is T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. (TROW) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds?

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Is T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:TROW) going to take off soon? Investors who are in the know are taking a bearish view. The number of bullish hedge fund bets shrunk by 4 in recent months.

In the 21st century investor’s toolkit, there are plenty of metrics shareholders can use to analyze their holdings. A pair of the most innovative are hedge fund and insider trading movement. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the top fund managers can trounce the broader indices by a superb margin (see just how much).

T. Rowe Price Group, Inc.Just as integral, optimistic insider trading activity is another way to parse down the financial markets. There are plenty of reasons for an executive to get rid of shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would behave bullishly. Several empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this tactic if piggybackers understand what to do (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, it’s important to take a gander at the recent action surrounding T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:TROW).

How have hedgies been trading T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:TROW)?

In preparation for this quarter, a total of 24 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -14% from the previous quarter. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings significantly.

When looking at the hedgies we track, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates had the biggest position in T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:TROW), worth close to $36.2 million, accounting for 0.1% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is John W. Rogers of Ariel Investments, with a $25.7 million position; 0.4% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining hedge funds that are bullish include Tom Gayner’s Markel Gayner Asset Management, Clint Carlson’s Carlson Capital and Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies.

Because T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:TROW) has witnessed bearish sentiment from the smart money, we can see that there is a sect of funds that decided to sell off their positions entirely heading into Q2. Intriguingly, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group dumped the largest position of all the hedgies we track, comprising an estimated $47.6 million in stock., and Matthew Tewksbury of Stevens Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $12.4 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as total hedge fund interest fell by 4 funds heading into Q2.

What have insiders been doing with T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:TROW)?

Insider buying is at its handiest when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last 180-day time frame, T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:TROW) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, 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 T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:TROW). These stocks are Invesco Ltd. (NYSE:IVZ), Northern Trust Corporation (NASDAQ:NTRS), State Street Corporation (NYSE:STT), Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE:AMP), and The Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE:BX). This group of stocks are the members of the asset management industry and their market caps are similar to TROW’s market cap.

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