Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Golden Ocean Group Ltd (GOGL)

In this article you are going to find out whether hedge funds think Golden Ocean Group Ltd (NASDAQ:GOGL) is a good investment right now. We like to check what the smart money thinks first before doing extensive research on a given stock. Although there have been several high profile failed hedge fund picks, the consensus picks among hedge fund investors have historically outperformed the market after adjusting for known risk attributes. It’s not surprising given that hedge funds have access to better information and more resources to predict the winners in the stock market.

Golden Ocean Group Ltd (NASDAQ:GOGL) has experienced a decrease in enthusiasm from smart money recently. Our calculations also showed that GOGL isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

Why do we pay any attention at all to hedge fund sentiment? Our research has shown that a select group of hedge fund holdings outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by 58 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that’ll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 36% through May 18th. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

Kerr Neilson of Platinum Asset Management

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, We take a look at lists like the 10 most profitable companies in the world to identify the compounders that are likely to deliver double digit returns. We interview hedge fund managers and ask them about their best ideas. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. For example we are checking out stocks recommended/scorned by legendary Bill Miller. Our best call in 2020 was shorting the market when the S&P 500 was trading at 3150 in February after realizing the coronavirus pandemic’s significance before most investors. With all of this in mind we’re going to go over the new hedge fund action encompassing Golden Ocean Group Ltd (NASDAQ:GOGL).

Hedge fund activity in Golden Ocean Group Ltd (NASDAQ:GOGL)

Heading into the second quarter of 2020, a total of 8 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -11% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 8 hedge funds with a bullish position in GOGL a year ago. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were adding to their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Platinum Asset Management, managed by Kerr Neilson, holds the most valuable position in Golden Ocean Group Ltd (NASDAQ:GOGL). Platinum Asset Management has a $121.9 million position in the stock, comprising 3.1% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Renaissance Technologies, holding a $11.6 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other members of the smart money that are bullish contain Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Platinum Asset Management allocated the biggest weight to Golden Ocean Group Ltd (NASDAQ:GOGL), around 3.08% of its 13F portfolio. Arrowstreet Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.01 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to GOGL.

We view hedge fund activity in the stock unfavorable, but in this case there was only a single hedge fund selling its entire position: Paloma Partners. One hedge fund selling its entire position doesn’t always imply a bearish intent. Theoretically a hedge fund may decide to sell a promising position in order to invest the proceeds in a more promising idea. However, we don’t think this is the case in this case because none of the 750+ hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey identified GOGL as a viable investment and initiated a position in the stock.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Golden Ocean Group Ltd (NASDAQ:GOGL). These stocks are Global Medical REIT Inc. (NYSE:GMRE), Patterson-UTI Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:PTEN), UMH Properties, Inc (NYSE:UMH), and Morphic Holding, Inc. (NASDAQ:MORF). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to GOGL’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 10.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $36 million. That figure was $141 million in GOGL’s case. Patterson-UTI Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:PTEN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand UMH Properties, Inc (NYSE:UMH) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Golden Ocean Group Ltd (NASDAQ:GOGL) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our calculations showed that top 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.4% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10.1 percentage points. These stocks gained 12.2% in 2020 through June 17th and still beat the market by 14.8 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on GOGL as the stock returned 34.5% during the second quarter and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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