Is AVX Corporation (NYSE:AVX) a good investment?
In the eyes of many investors, hedge funds are perceived as delayed, old financial vehicles of an era lost to time. Although there are over 8,000 hedge funds in operation today, Insider Monkey focuses on the masters of this club, about 525 funds. It is widely held that this group oversees the majority of the hedge fund industry’s total assets, and by tracking their highest quality investments, we’ve brought to light a few investment strategies that have historically outperformed the S&P 500. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outpaced the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points annually for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve began to 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 (explore the details and some picks here).
Equally as crucial, bullish insider trading sentiment is a second way to analyze the financial markets. Obviously, there are many motivations for a corporate insider to drop shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would buy. Various empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this method if you know where to look (learn more here).
Keeping this in mind, it’s important to examine the latest info for AVX Corporation (NYSE:AVX).
How are hedge funds trading AVX Corporation (NYSE:AVX)?
At Q2’s end, a total of 14 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 8% from the first quarter. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes considerably.
When using filings from the hedgies we track, Royce & Associates, managed by Chuck Royce, holds the biggest position in AVX Corporation (NYSE:AVX). Royce & Associates has a $151.5 million position in the stock, comprising 0.5% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Third Avenue Management, managed by Martin Whitman, which held a $24.3 million position; the fund has 0.5% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other peers that hold long positions include Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.
As one would understandably expect, certain bigger names were leading the bulls’ herd. Royce & Associates, managed by Chuck Royce, assembled the most valuable position in AVX Corporation (NYSE:AVX). Royce & Associates had 151.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Martin Whitman’s Third Avenue Management also made a $24.3 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.
How are insiders trading AVX Corporation (NYSE:AVX)?
Legal insider trading, particularly when it’s bullish, is particularly usable when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the latest six-month time period, AVX Corporation (NYSE:AVX) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
We’ll check out the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to AVX Corporation (NYSE:AVX). These stocks are Encore Wire Corporation (NASDAQ:WIRE), Molex Incorporated (NASDAQ:MOLX), Sanmina Corp (NASDAQ:SANM), Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE:DLB), and Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI). This group of stocks are in the diversified electronics industry and their market caps match AVX’s market cap.
