Hedge Funds Have Never Been This Bullish On Green Plains Inc. (GPRE)

In this article we will analyze whether Green Plains Inc. (NASDAQ:GPRE) is a good investment right now by following the lead of some of the best investors in the world and piggybacking their ideas. There’s no better way to get these firms’ immense resources and analytical capabilities working for us than to follow their lead into their best ideas. While not all of these picks will be winners, our research shows that these picks historically outperformed the market by double digits annually.

Green Plains Inc. (NASDAQ:GPRE) investors should be aware of an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds recently. Green Plains Inc. (NASDAQ:GPRE) was in 29 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic was previously 27. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. There were 26 hedge funds in our database with GPRE positions at the end of the second quarter. Our calculations also showed that GPRE isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium prices have more than doubled over the past year, so 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. Now we’re going to take a look at the latest hedge fund action regarding Green Plains Inc. (NASDAQ:GPRE).

Fred DiSanto of Ancora Advisors

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

At Q3’s end, a total of 29 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 12% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in GPRE over the last 25 quarters. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

More specifically, Ancora Advisors was the largest shareholder of Green Plains Inc. (NASDAQ:GPRE), with a stake worth $123.2 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Ancora Advisors was Rubric Capital Management, which amassed a stake valued at $43.5 million. Driehaus Capital, D E Shaw, and Encompass Capital Advisors 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 Bronson Point Partners allocated the biggest weight to Green Plains Inc. (NASDAQ:GPRE), around 3.57% of its 13F portfolio. Ancora Advisors is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 3.18 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to GPRE.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key money managers have jumped into Green Plains Inc. (NASDAQ:GPRE) headfirst. Masters Capital Management, managed by Mike Masters, established the most outsized position in Green Plains Inc. (NASDAQ:GPRE). Masters Capital Management had $7.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Louis Bacon’s Moore Global Investments also initiated a $5.5 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Philip Hempleman’s Ardsley Partners, Till Bechtolsheimer’s Arosa Capital Management, and Steve Pattyn’s Yaupon Capital.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Green Plains Inc. (NASDAQ:GPRE). These stocks are Enterprise Financial Services Corp (NASDAQ:EFSC), Tri Continental Corporation (NYSE:TY), Construction Partners, Inc. (NASDAQ:ROAD), BioLife Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLFS), Rattler Midstream LP (NASDAQ:RTLR), McGrath RentCorp (NASDAQ:MGRC), and Empire State Realty Trust Inc (NYSE:ESRT). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble GPRE’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 8.7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $109 million. That figure was $361 million in GPRE’s case. McGrath RentCorp (NASDAQ:MGRC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Tri Continental Corporation (NYSE:TY) is the least popular one with only 2 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Green Plains Inc. (NASDAQ:GPRE) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for GPRE is 88. 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 returned 28.6% in 2021 through November 30th but still managed to beat the market by 5.6 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on GPRE as the stock returned 18.4% since the end of September (through 11/30) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were clearly right about piling into this stock relative to other stocks with similar market capitalizations.

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