Here is What Hedge Funds Think About ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE)

ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE) has experienced a decrease in support from the world’s most elite money managers of late.

If you’d ask most stock holders, hedge funds are perceived as slow, old investment vehicles of yesteryear. While there are greater than 8000 funds with their doors open today, we hone in on the bigwigs of this club, close to 450 funds. Most estimates calculate that this group has its hands on most of the smart money’s total capital, and by keeping an eye on their top stock picks, we have unsheathed a number of investment strategies that have historically outpaced the broader indices. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per annum for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve began to sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have outpaced the S&P 500 index by 24 percentage points in 7 months (see all of our picks from August).

Just as beneficial, bullish insider trading activity is another way to parse down the stock market universe. Just as you’d expect, there are plenty of motivations for an insider to sell shares of his or her company, but only one, very obvious reason why they would behave bullishly. Various empirical studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this method if you understand where to look (learn more here).

With these “truths” under our belt, let’s take a look at the key action surrounding ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE).

Hedge fund activity in ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE)

At year’s end, a total of 14 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -13% from the third quarter. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings significantly.

Of the funds we track, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies had the largest position in ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE), worth close to $46.4 million, comprising 0.1% of its total 13F portfolio. On Renaissance Technologies’s heels is D E Shaw, managed by D. E. Shaw, which held a $41.9 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other peers that hold long positions include Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Mario Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors and Alec Litowitz and Ross Laser’s Magnetar Capital.

Judging by the fact that ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE) has experienced declining sentiment from hedge fund managers, it’s safe to say that there was a specific group of fund managers that elected to cut their full holdings heading into 2013. Intriguingly, Sean Cullinan’s Point State Capital cut the largest stake of the 450+ funds we key on, comprising about $23.2 million in stock., and Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson of Adage Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $14.4 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 2 funds heading into 2013.

How have insiders been trading ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE)?

Insider buying is at its handiest when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the last six-month time period, ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and 1 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s also take a look at hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE). These stocks are Integrys Energy Group, Inc. (NYSE:TEG), Sempra Energy (NYSE:SRE), AGL Resources Inc. (NYSE:GAS), Western Gas Equity Partners LP (NYSE:WGP), and EQT Corporation (NYSE:EQT). This group of stocks belong to the gas utilities industry and their market caps match OKE’s market cap.

With the returns exhibited by our studies, everyday investors must always keep an eye on hedge fund and insider trading activity, and ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE) is an important part of this process.

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