American Railcar Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARII ) was in 15 hedge funds portfolio at the end of the first quarter of 2013. ARII investors should be aware of a decrease in support from the worlds most elite money managers in recent months. There were 19 hedge funds in our database with ARII holdings at the end of the previous quarter.

If youd ask most stock holders, hedge funds are seen as worthless, old investment tools of the past. While there are more than 8000 funds trading today, we at Insider Monkey choose to focus on the crème de la crème of this club, close to 450 funds. It is widely believed that this group controls most of all hedge funds total asset base, and by paying attention to their top equity investments, we have formulated a few investment strategies that have historically outpaced the S&P 500 index. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per year for a decade in our back tests, and since weve started sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have outclassed the S&P 500 index by 23.3 percentage points in 8 months (see all of our picks from August ).

Just as integral, bullish insider trading sentiment is another way to parse down the stock market universe. Obviously, there are lots of motivations for a corporate insider to get rid of shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would initiate a purchase. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this method if piggybackers know what to do (learn more here ).

Now, lets take a gander at the recent action regarding American Railcar Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARII ).

Hedge fund activity in American Railcar Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARII)

At Q1s end, a total of 15 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of -21% from the first quarter. With the smart moneys capital changing hands, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes meaningfully.

According to our comprehensive database, Carl Icahns Icahn Capital LP had the biggest position in American Railcar Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARII), worth close to $554.9 million, comprising 3.3% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies . with a $11.9 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other hedgies with similar optimism include Chuck Royces Royce & Associates . Israel Englanders Millennium Management and Ken Griffins Citadel Investment Group .

Since American Railcar Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARII) has witnessed falling interest from the smart money, its safe to say that there were a few hedgies that slashed their full holdings at the end of the first quarter. Its worth mentioning that Paul Reeder and Edward Shapiros PAR Capital Management cut the largest investment of the upper crust of funds we track, comprising close to $8.1 million in stock. Alexander Mitchells fund, Scopus Asset Management . also sold off its stock, about $7.1 million worth. These moves are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 4 funds at the end of the first quarter.

What have insiders been doing with American Railcar Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARII)?

Insider purchases made by high-level executives is most useful when the company were looking at has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the latest six-month time period, American Railcar Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARII) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and 1 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here ).

Lets check out hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to American Railcar Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARII). These stocks are Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corp (NYSE:WAB ), FreightCar America, Inc. (NASDAQ:RAIL ), Trinity Industries, Inc. (NYSE:TRN ), Guangshen Railway Co. Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:GSH ), and Greenbrier Companies Inc (NYSE:GBX ). All of these stocks are in the railroads industry and their market caps match ARIIs market cap.