World-class money managers like Ken Griffin and Barry Rosenstein only invest their wealthy clients’ money after undertaking a rigorous examination of any potential stock. They are particularly successful in this regard when it comes to small-cap stocks, which their peerless research gives them a big information advantage on when it comes to judging their worth. It’s not surprising then that they generate their biggest returns from these stocks and invest more of their money in these stocks on average than other investors. It’s also not surprising then that we pay close attention to these picks ourselves and have built a market-beating investment strategy around them.
Is Cameco Corporation (NYSE:CCJ) a healthy stock for your portfolio? Money managers are turning less bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund bets fell by 2 lately. Our calculations also showed that CCJ isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
To most shareholders, hedge funds are perceived as slow, old financial vehicles of years past. While there are over 8,000 funds in operation today, Our researchers hone in on the crème de la crème of this club, about 700 funds. These investment experts oversee the lion’s share of all hedge funds’ total capital, and by observing their best investments, Insider Monkey has formulated a few investment strategies that have historically defeated Mr. Market. Insider Monkey’s flagship hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 index by 6 percentage points per annum since its inception in May 2014 through early November 2018. We were able to generate large returns even by identifying short candidates. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 24% since February 2017 (through December 3rd) even though the market was up nearly 23% during the same period. We just shared a list of 11 short targets in our latest quarterly update.
We’re going to take a peek at the fresh hedge fund action regarding Cameco Corporation (NYSE:CCJ).
How are hedge funds trading Cameco Corporation (NYSE:CCJ)?
At Q3’s end, a total of 19 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -10% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards CCJ over the last 13 quarters. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, David Iben’s Kopernik Global Investors has the most valuable position in Cameco Corporation (NYSE:CCJ), worth close to $112.6 million, amounting to 21% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Adage Capital Management, managed by Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson, which holds a $103.1 million position; the fund has 0.2% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other professional money managers with similar optimism consist of Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Carson Yost’s Yost Capital Management and Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management.
Due to the fact that Cameco Corporation (NYSE:CCJ) has witnessed declining sentiment from hedge fund managers, logic holds that there were a few hedgies that decided to sell off their full holdings by the end of the third quarter. Interestingly, Louis Bacon’s Moore Global Investments cut the biggest position of all the hedgies followed by Insider Monkey, comprising close to $4.4 million in stock, and Mark Kingdon’s Kingdon Capital was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $3.7 million worth. These moves are important to note, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 2 funds by the end of the third quarter.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Cameco Corporation (NYSE:CCJ) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Oasis Petroleum Inc. (NYSE:OAS), Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation (NASDAQ:PPC), Teradata Corporation (NYSE:TDC), and Medidata Solutions Inc (NASDAQ:MDSO). This group of stocks’ market valuations match CCJ’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| OAS | 33 | 940108 | 6 |
| PPC | 16 | 105876 | 2 |
| TDC | 23 | 254471 | 2 |
| MDSO | 14 | 136899 | 3 |
| Average | 21.5 | 359339 | 3.25 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 21.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $359 million. That figure was $292 million in CCJ’s case. Oasis Petroleum Inc. (NYSE:OAS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Medidata Solutions Inc (NASDAQ:MDSO) is the least popular one with only 14 bullish hedge fund positions. Cameco Corporation (NYSE:CCJ) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard OAS might be a better candidate to consider a long position.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
