This Metric Says You Are Smart to Buy Buffalo Wild Wings (NASDAQ:BWLD)

Buffalo Wild Wings (NASDAQ:BWLD)

Buffalo Wild Wings (NASDAQ:BWLD) was in 17 hedge funds’ portfolio at the end of December. BWLD investors should pay attention to an increase in hedge fund sentiment recently. There were 16 hedge funds in our database with BWLD positions at the endof the previous quarter.

According to most traders, hedge funds are perceived as unimportant, outdated financial tools of the past. While there are over 8000 funds with their doors open today, we at Insider Monkey look at the elite of this group, about 450 funds. It is estimated that this group oversees the majority of all hedge funds’ total asset base, and by tracking their best stock picks, we have figured out a few investment strategies that have historically outpaced Mr. Market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points a year 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 outpaced the S&P 500 index by 25 percentage points in 6.5 month (check out a sample of our picks).

Just as integral, bullish insider trading activity is a second way to parse down the investments you’re interested in. There are plenty of stimuli for a bullish insider to drop shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would initiate a purchase. Several academic studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this method if shareholders understand where to look (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, we’re going to take a gander at the key action regarding Buffalo Wild Wings (NASDAQ:BWLD).

What have hedge funds been doing with Buffalo Wild Wings (NASDAQ:BWLD)?

In preparation for this year, a total of 17 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 6% from the previous quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially.

According to our comprehensive database, Tiger Consumer Management, managed by Patrick McCormack, holds the largest position in Buffalo Wild Wings (NASDAQ:BWLD). Tiger Consumer Management has a $65 million position in the stock, comprising 3% of its 13F portfolio. On Tiger Consumer Management’s heels is SAC Capital Advisors, managed by Steven Cohen, which held a $44 million position; the fund has 0.2% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other peers that hold long positions include SAC Subsidiary’s Sigma Capital Management, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates.

As industrywide interest jumped, key money managers have jumped into Buffalo Wild Wings (NASDAQ:BWLD) headfirst. Sigma Capital Management, managed by SAC Subsidiary, assembled the biggest position in Buffalo Wild Wings (NASDAQ:BWLD). Sigma Capital Management had 24 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Jacob Gottlieb’s Visium Asset Management also made a $5 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new BWLD investors: Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, Xerion, and Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management.

Insider trading activity in Buffalo Wild Wings (NASDAQ:BWLD)

Insider buying is best served when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last half-year time period, Buffalo Wild Wings (NASDAQ:BWLD) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and 8 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

With the results shown by our tactics, retail investors should always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Buffalo Wild Wings (NASDAQ:BWLD) applies perfectly to this mantra.

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Insider Monkey’s small-cap strategy returned 29.2% between September 2012 and February 2013 versus 8.7% for the S&P 500 index. Try it now by clicking the link above.