Newmont Mining Corp (NEM): Hedge Fund Interest Is In Decline, Obviously

It’s pretty evident that with that recent failures in the gold markets, gold miners are struggling too. Newmont Mining Corp (NYSE:NEM) is no stranger to this, and the smart money seems to agree. Let’s see the details.

At the moment, there are tons of indicators investors can use to watch publicly traded companies. Some of the most useful are hedge fund and insider trading interest. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the elite investment managers can outclass their index-focused peers by a superb amount (see just how much).

Equally as useful, bullish insider trading sentiment is a second way to look at the stock market universe. Just as you’d expect, there are plenty of motivations for an insider to drop shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would initiate a purchase. Many academic studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this strategy if piggybackers understand what to do (learn more here).

Now that that’s out of the way, we’re going to examine the recent info for Newmont Mining Corp (NYSE:NEM).

What does the smart money think about Newmont Mining Corp (NYSE:NEM)?

Heading into Q3, a total of 32 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -14% from the first quarter. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings meaningfully.

When using filings from the hedgies we track, First Eagle Investment Management, managed by Matt McLennan, holds the most valuable position in Newmont Mining Corp (NYSE:NEM). First Eagle Investment Management has a $183.4 million position in the stock, comprising 0.6% of its 13F portfolio. On First Eagle Investment Management’s heels is D E Shaw, managed by D. E. Shaw, which held a $85.4 million position; 0.2% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other peers that hold long positions include Mario Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors, Gilchrist Berg’s Water Street Capital and Martin Whitman’s Third Avenue Management.

As Newmont Mining Corp (NYSE:NEM) has witnessed declining interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s easy to see that there lies a certain “tier” of fund managers that slashed their positions entirely at the end of the second quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management dumped the biggest investment of all the hedgies we key on, valued at about $22.1 million in stock. Julian Robertson’s fund, Tiger Management, also cut its stock, about $12.6 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as total hedge fund interest fell by 5 funds at the end of the second quarter.

What do corporate executives and insiders think about Newmont Mining Corp (NYSE:NEM)?

Bullish insider trading is best served when the company in question has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the latest 180-day time frame, Newmont Mining Corp (NYSE:NEM) has experienced 1 unique insiders purchasing, and 11 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 Newmont Mining Corp (NYSE:NEM). These stocks are AngloGold Ashanti Limited (ADR) (NYSE:AU), Kinross Gold Corporation (USA) (NYSE:KGC), Yamana Gold Inc. (USA) (NYSE:AUY), Barrick Gold Corporation (USA) (NYSE:ABX), and Goldcorp Inc. (USA) (NYSE:GG). This group of stocks are in the gold industry and their market caps resemble NEM’s market cap.