Before we spend days researching a stock idea we’d like to take a look at how hedge funds and billionaire investors recently traded that stock. S&P 500 Index ETF (SPY) lost 13.5% in the fourth quarter. Seven out of 11 industry groups in the S&P 500 Index were down more than 20% from their 52-week highs at the trough of the stock market crash. The average return of a randomly picked stock in the index was even worse. This means you (or a monkey throwing a dart) have less than an even chance of beating the market by randomly picking a stock. On the other hand, the top 15 most popular S&P 500 stocks among hedge funds not only recouped their Q4 losses but also outperformed the index by more than 3 percentage points. In this article, we will take a look at what hedge funds think about Geopark Ltd (NYSE:GPRK).
Is Geopark Ltd (NYSE:GPRK) a splendid investment now? Money managers are taking a bullish view. The number of bullish hedge fund bets increased by 3 in recent months. Our calculations also showed that gprk isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
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 check out the new hedge fund action regarding Geopark Ltd (NYSE:GPRK).
How are hedge funds trading Geopark Ltd (NYSE:GPRK)?
At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 13 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 30% from the second quarter of 2018. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in GPRK over the last 14 quarters. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
Among these funds, Renaissance Technologies held the most valuable stake in Geopark Ltd (NYSE:GPRK), which was worth $48.7 million at the end of the fourth quarter. On the second spot was Marshall Wace LLP which amassed $5 million worth of shares. Moreover, Millennium Management, Navellier & Associates, and Royce & Associates were also bullish on Geopark Ltd (NYSE:GPRK), allocating a large percentage of their portfolios to this stock.
As industrywide interest jumped, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. D E Shaw, managed by D. E. Shaw, created the most valuable position in Geopark Ltd (NYSE:GPRK). D E Shaw had $1.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group also initiated a $0.3 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp, Jeffrey Talpins’s Element Capital Management, and Michael Platt and William Reeves’s BlueCrest Capital Mgmt..
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Geopark Ltd (NYSE:GPRK) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Homology Medicines, Inc. (NASDAQ:FIXX), Skyline Champion Corporation (NYSE:SKY), Rambus Inc. (NASDAQ:RMBS), and New York Mortgage Trust, Inc. (NASDAQ:NYMT). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to GPRK’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| FIXX | 8 | 163781 | 2 |
| SKY | 23 | 232733 | 0 |
| RMBS | 13 | 58672 | 2 |
| NYMT | 9 | 4241 | 2 |
| Average | 13.25 | 114857 | 1.5 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 13.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $115 million. That figure was $67 million in GPRK’s case. Skyline Champion Corporation (NYSE:SKY) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Homology Medicines, Inc. (NASDAQ:FIXX) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Geopark Ltd (NYSE:GPRK) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our calculations showed that top 15 most popular stocks) among hedge funds returned 24.2% through April 22nd and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by more than 7 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on GPRK as the stock returned 29.7% and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.