Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Energy Transfer Partners LP (ETP) – Spectra Energy Corp. (SE), Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. (PAA)

Is Energy Transfer Partners LP (NYSE:ETP) undervalued? Money managers are reducing their bets on the stock. The number of long hedge fund positions were trimmed by 1 in recent months.

In the 21st century investor’s toolkit, there are tons of metrics shareholders can use to track the equity markets. A pair of the most innovative are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the top hedge fund managers can beat their index-focused peers by a very impressive margin (see just how much).

Just as key, bullish insider trading sentiment is another way to parse down the world of equities. Just as you’d expect, there are many reasons for a corporate insider to drop shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would initiate a purchase. Many academic studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this tactic if “monkeys” know where to look (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, we’re going to take a gander at the key action regarding Energy Transfer Partners LP (NYSE:ETP).

What have hedge funds been doing with Energy Transfer Partners LP (NYSE:ETP)?

At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 12 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of -8% from the third quarter. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes substantially.

When looking at the hedgies we track, Daniel S. Och’s OZ Management had the biggest position in Energy Transfer Partners LP (NYSE:ETP), worth close to $37 million, comprising 0.1% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Daniel S. Och of OZ Management, with a $27.8 million call position; the fund has 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining hedgies that are bullish include Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies and Richard Driehaus’s Driehaus Capital.

Due to the fact that Energy Transfer Partners LP (NYSE:ETP) has faced declining sentiment from the smart money, it’s easy to see that there lies a certain “tier” of money managers that elected to cut their full holdings in Q4. At the top of the heap, Kenneth Mario Garschina’s Mason Capital Management cut the largest investment of all the hedgies we key on, totaling about $74.9 million in stock., and Carl Tiedemann and Michael Tiedemann of TIG Advisors was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $3.6 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 1 funds in Q4.

What do corporate executives and insiders think about Energy Transfer Partners LP (NYSE:ETP)?

Bullish insider trading is particularly usable when the company in question has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the latest six-month time frame, Energy Transfer Partners LP (NYSE:ETP) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s go over hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Energy Transfer Partners LP (NYSE:ETP). These stocks are Spectra Energy Corp. (NYSE:SE), Magellan Midstream Partners, L.P. (NYSE:MMP), Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. (NYSE:PAA), Oneok Partners LP (NYSE:OKS), and Energy Transfer Equity, L.P. (NYSE:ETE). This group of stocks are the members of the oil & gas pipelines industry and their market caps are closest to ETP’s market cap.

With the results exhibited by our strategies, retail investors must always monitor hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Energy Transfer Partners LP (NYSE:ETP) applies perfectly to this mantra.

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