Is Republic Airways Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:RJET) a good investment?
If you were to ask many of your fellow readers, hedge funds are seen as delayed, outdated financial vehicles of a period lost to current times. Although there are In excess of 8,000 hedge funds trading in present day, Insider Monkey aim at the masters of this group, around 525 funds. Analysts calculate that this group oversees the majority of the smart money’s total capital, and by monitoring their best investments, we’ve discovered a few investment strategies that have historically beaten the market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed 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 outclassed the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (explore the details and some picks here).
Equally as crucial, bullish insider trading activity is a second way to look at the investments you’re interested in. There are a variety of motivations for an upper level exec to sell shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would buy. Various academic studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this method if you know where to look (learn more here).
Furthermore, let’s discuss the latest info for Republic Airways Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:RJET).
How have hedgies been trading Republic Airways Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:RJET)?
At the end of the second quarter, a total of 20 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 0% from the previous quarter. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings substantially.
Judging by the fact that Republic Airways Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:RJET) has experienced a fall in interest from the smart money’s best and brightest, it’s easy to see that there is a sect of funds who sold off their full holdings heading into Q2. Interestingly, David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital dumped the biggest investment of the 450+ funds we key on, worth an estimated $11.4 million in stock, and Neil Chriss of Hutchin Hill Capital was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $1.7 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).
Insider trading activity in Republic Airways Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:RJET)
Insider buying made by high-level executives is at its handiest when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past six months. Over the latest half-year time frame, Republic Airways Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:RJET) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, 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 Republic Airways Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:RJET). These stocks are Allegiant Travel Company (NASDAQ:ALGT), Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes SA (ADR) (NYSE:GOL), Hawaiian Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:HA), SkyWest, Inc. (NASDAQ:SKYW), and Era Group Inc (NYSE:ERA). All of these stocks are in the regional airlines industry and their market caps resemble RJET’s market cap.
| Company Name | # of Hedge Funds | # of Insiders Buying | # of Insiders Selling |
| Allegiant Travel Company (NASDAQ:ALGT) | 11 | 0 | 0 |
| Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes SA (ADR) (NYSE:GOL) | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| Hawaiian Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:HA) | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| SkyWest, Inc. (NASDAQ:SKYW) | 9 | 0 | 0 |
| Era Group Inc (NYSE:ERA) | 10 | 0 | 0 |
Using the results demonstrated by Insider Monkey’s research, average investors must always track hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Republic Airways Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:RJET) applies perfectly to this mantra.
