It seems that the masses and most of the financial media hate hedge funds and what they do, but why is this hatred of hedge funds so prominent? At the end of the day, these asset management firms do not gamble the hard-earned money of the people who are on the edge of poverty. Truth be told, most hedge fund managers and other smaller players within this industry are very smart and skilled investors. Of course, they may also make wrong bets in some instances, but no one knows what the future holds and how market participants will react to the bountiful news that floods in each day. The Standard and Poor’s 500 Index returned approximately 13.1% in the first 2.5 months of this year (including dividend payments). Conversely, hedge funds’ top 15 large-cap stock picks generated a return of 19.7% during the same 2.5-month period, with 93% of these stock picks outperforming the broader market benchmark. Coincidence? It might happen to be so, but it is unlikely. Our research covering the last 18 years indicates that hedge funds’ stock picks generate superior risk-adjusted returns. That’s why we believe it isn’t a waste of time to check out hedge fund sentiment before you invest in a stock like GasLog Partners LP (NYSE:GLOP).
Is GasLog Partners LP (NYSE:GLOP) a buy, sell, or hold? Prominent investors are getting more optimistic. The number of bullish hedge fund positions rose by 2 lately. Our calculations also showed that glop isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds. GLOP was in 7 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the fourth quarter of 2018. There were 5 hedge funds in our database with GLOP holdings at the end of the previous quarter.
In the financial world there are a large number of tools investors have at their disposal to grade stocks. A pair of the most under-the-radar tools are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outperform the broader indices by a solid amount. Insider Monkey’s flagship best performing hedge funds strategy returned 20.7% year to date (through March 12th) and outperformed the market even though it draws its stock picks among small-cap stocks. This strategy also outperformed the market by 32 percentage points since its inception (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
We’re going to take a peek at the latest hedge fund action surrounding GasLog Partners LP (NYSE:GLOP).
How have hedgies been trading GasLog Partners LP (NYSE:GLOP)?
At Q4’s end, a total of 7 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 40% from the second quarter of 2018. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards GLOP over the last 14 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.
More specifically, Renaissance Technologies was the largest shareholder of GasLog Partners LP (NYSE:GLOP), with a stake worth $13.5 million reported as of the end of December. Trailing Renaissance Technologies was Royce & Associates, which amassed a stake valued at $5.2 million. BlueCrest Capital Mgmt., Citadel Investment Group, and Arrowstreet Capital were also very fond of the stock, giving the stock large weights in their portfolios.
As aggregate interest increased, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. BlueCrest Capital Mgmt., managed by Michael Platt and William Reeves, assembled the largest position in GasLog Partners LP (NYSE:GLOP). BlueCrest Capital Mgmt. had $2.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital also initiated a $1 million position during the quarter.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to GasLog Partners LP (NYSE:GLOP). These stocks are Materion Corp (NYSE:MTRN), Carbon Black, Inc. (NASDAQ:CBLK), Audentes Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:BOLD), and Intrexon Corp (NASDAQ:XON). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to GLOP’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| MTRN | 17 | 81722 | 4 |
| CBLK | 17 | 46776 | 8 |
| BOLD | 24 | 349589 | 7 |
| XON | 10 | 29347 | 1 |
| Average | 17 | 126859 | 5 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 17 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $127 million. That figure was $24 million in GLOP’s case. Audentes Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:BOLD) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Intrexon Corp (NASDAQ:XON) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks GasLog Partners LP (NYSE:GLOP) is even less popular than XON. Hedge funds dodged a bullet by taking a bearish stance towards GLOP. Our calculations showed that the top 15 most popular hedge fund stocks returned 24.2% through April 22nd and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by more than 7 percentage points. Unfortunately GLOP wasn’t nearly as popular as these 15 stock (hedge fund sentiment was very bearish); GLOP investors were disappointed as the stock returned 3.9% and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 15 most popular stocks) among hedge funds as 13 of these stocks already outperformed the market this year.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.