Devon Energy Corp (NYSE:DVN)’s shares are trading higher on Wednesday after the analysts at Barclays reiterated their ‘Overweight’ rating and upped their price target to $38 per share from $34 per share. The analysts like how Devon is trading at a discount to its asset quality and believe Devon shares will deliver good returns as management improves the balance sheet and as crude prices continue to trend higher. Devon Energy Corp (NYSE:DVN) has substantial assets in the Eagle Ford and STACK as well as in the Delaware Basin. Many of its wells in those areas have made substantial productivity and efficiency improvements over the past few years. Hedge funds seem to be fond of Devon Energy, as we will see later on in this article.
The number of funds with long positions in Devon Energy rose by 11 recently. However, the level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity, but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS), Tractor Supply Company (NASDAQ:TSCO), and Rockwell Collins, Inc. (NYSE:COL) to gather more data points.
Follow Devon Energy Corp (NYSE:DVN)
Follow Devon Energy Corp (NYSE:DVN)
Today there are a lot of methods stock market investors employ to grade publicly traded companies. A pair of the less utilized methods are hedge fund and insider trading interest. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the top money managers can outpace the broader indices by a significant amount (see the details here).
With all of this in mind, we’re going to take a gander at the latest action encompassing Devon Energy Corp (NYSE:DVN).
Heading into the second quarter of 2016, a total of 58 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 23% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group has the number one position in Devon Energy Corp (NYSE:DVN), worth close to $168 million, accounting for 1.7% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Millennium Management, led by Israel Englander, holding a $137.4 million position; the fund has 0.3% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other members of the smart money that hold long positions consist of Bill Miller’s Legg Mason Capital Management, Stuart J. Zimmer’s Zimmer Partners and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.
On the next page, we are going to take a closer look at some investors that added Devon Energy to their equity portfolios during the first quarter.
