Are you looking to invest in technology companies? For this list we searched the tech sector for companies seeing bullish sentiment from not one, but two groups of sophisticated investors: institutional investors and company insiders.
Institutional investors are also known as "big money" investors. They represent big pools of money such as investment banks, pension funds, mutual funds, hedge funds, endowment funds, etc. When they invest in stocks, they can invest millions of dollars or more at one time. These transactions, called "block trades," can have a significant effect on share prices.
Because institutional investors handle such large amounts of money, it is easy enough to assume that the big money managers know what they are doing -- or at the very least know more than the average investor. This is why these investors are also sometimes referred to as "smart money."
If institutional investors start investing in a company, other investors can assume that some of the most talented analysts and money managers expect the company's share prices to increase over time. The stocks on our list are experiencing significant investment from the smart money.
Company insiders are another group of investors with sophisticated company information. After all, who knows a company better than the upper management and board members who work there? That's why investment activity is closely monitored and can tell us a lot about where they feel the business is heading.
Although insiders sell their company's shares for many reasons, when they buy their company's stock, it indicates that they have an optimistic outlook for the company. It may also indicate that they believe the stock is attractively priced.
The list
The following is a list of technology stocks, with market caps over $300 million, that we have screened for significant net institutional buying in the current quarter and significant net insider buying over the past six months.
These sophisticated investors feel there is more upside than downside to these names. Do you agree? (Click here to access free, interactive tools to analyze these ideas.)
1. Affymetrix
2. Cadence Design Systems
3. Convergys
4. GeoEye
5. Leap Wireless International
6. Level 3 Communications
7. Merge Healthcare
8. Take-Two Interactive Software
9. MEMC Electronic Materials
Interactive Chart: Press Play to compare changes in analyst ratings over the last two years for the stocks mentioned above. Analyst ratings sourced from Zacks Investment Research.
Kapitall's Rebecca Lipman does not own any of the shares mentioned above. Institutional data sourced from Fidelity, insider data from Yahoo! Finance.