Antero Resources Corp (AR): Hedge Funds Are Snapping Up

Insider Monkey has processed numerous 13F filings of hedge funds and successful value investors to create an extensive database of hedge fund holdings. The 13F filings show the hedge funds’ and successful investors’ positions as of the end of the fourth quarter. You can find articles about an individual hedge fund’s trades on numerous financial news websites. However, in this article we will take a look at their collective moves over the last 6 years and analyze what the smart money thinks of Antero Resources Corp (NYSE:AR) based on that data.

Is Antero Resources Corp (NYSE:AR) going to take off soon? Investors who are in the know were becoming hopeful. The number of bullish hedge fund positions went up by 2 in recent months. Antero Resources Corp (NYSE:AR) was in 33 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 51. Our calculations also showed that AR isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings). There were 31 hedge funds in our database with AR holdings at the end of December.

Why do we pay any attention at all to hedge fund sentiment? Our research has shown that a select group of hedge fund holdings outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by 115 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

David Tepper of Appaloosa Management LP

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium mining is one of the fastest growing industries right now, so we are checking out stock pitches like this emerging lithium stock. We go through lists like the 10 best EV stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our homepage. With all of this in mind we’re going to analyze the new hedge fund action regarding Antero Resources Corp (NYSE:AR).

Do Hedge Funds Think AR Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At Q1’s end, a total of 33 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 6% from the fourth quarter of 2020. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards AR over the last 23 quarters. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Among these funds, SailingStone Capital Partners held the most valuable stake in Antero Resources Corp (NYSE:AR), which was worth $119.5 million at the end of the fourth quarter. On the second spot was FPR Partners which amassed $109.9 million worth of shares. Shah Capital Management, Citadel Investment Group, and DSAM Partners were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position SailingStone Capital Partners allocated the biggest weight to Antero Resources Corp (NYSE:AR), around 27.94% of its 13F portfolio. Shah Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 22.42 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to AR.

Now, some big names were breaking ground themselves. Appaloosa Management LP, managed by David Tepper, created the most outsized position in Antero Resources Corp (NYSE:AR). Appaloosa Management LP had $30.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Renaissance Technologies also initiated a $23 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new AR positions are Glenn Greenberg’s Brave Warrior Capital, Naval Khera’s Brightline Capital, and Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Antero Resources Corp (NYSE:AR). These stocks are Acushnet Holdings Corp. (NYSE:GOLF), Alamos Gold Inc (NYSE:AGI), Cardlytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:CDLX), Corsair Gaming, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRSR), Clover Health Investments, Corp. (NASDAQ:CLOV), Kulicke and Soffa Industries Inc. (NASDAQ:KLIC), and Seer, Inc. (NASDAQ:SEER). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble AR’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 22.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $420 million. That figure was $610 million in AR’s case. Cardlytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:CDLX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Corsair Gaming, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRSR) is the least popular one with only 9 bullish hedge fund positions. Antero Resources Corp (NYSE:AR) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for AR is 67.8. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 22.8% in 2021 through July 2nd and still beat the market by 6 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on AR as the stock returned 43.4% since the end of Q1 (through 7/2) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.