Should You Buy West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. (WST)?

West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. (NYSE:WST) has seen an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers of late.

In the financial world, there are dozens of gauges market participants can use to analyze the equity markets. A duo of the most under-the-radar are hedge fund and insider trading activity. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the elite fund managers can outperform the broader indices by a solid margin (see just how much).

Equally as integral, bullish insider trading activity is another way to parse down the investments you’re interested in. As the old adage goes: there are a number of stimuli for an upper level exec to get rid of shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would initiate a purchase. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this tactic if “monkeys” know where to look (learn more here).

Consequently, it’s important to take a gander at the key action regarding West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. (NYSE:WST).

Hedge fund activity in West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. (NYSE:WST)

In preparation for this quarter, a total of 13 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 44% from the first quarter.

As one would reasonably expect, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. CR Intrinsic Investors, managed by SAC Subsidiary, created the most outsized position in West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. (NYSE:WST). CR Intrinsic Investors had 12.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw also made a $8 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new WST investors: John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors, Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management, and Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management.

How have insiders been trading West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. (NYSE:WST)?

Insider purchases made by high-level executives is at its handiest when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last 180-day time period, West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. (NYSE:WST) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and 3 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s check out hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. (NYSE:WST). These stocks are Teleflex Incorporated (NYSE:TFX), HeartWare International Inc (NASDAQ:HTWR), Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:HRC), Haemonetics Corporation (NYSE:HAE), and Thoratec Corporation (NASDAQ:THOR). This group of stocks are in the medical instruments & supplies industry and their market caps are similar to WST’s market cap.