Hugoton Royalty Trust (NYSE:HGT) has seen a decrease in enthusiasm from smart money of late.
In the financial world, there are tons of metrics investors can use to watch stocks. Two of the most under-the-radar are hedge fund and insider trading interest. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top investment managers can outclass the market by a healthy amount (see just how much).
Equally as key, optimistic insider trading activity is a second way to parse down the investments you’re interested in. Just as you’d expect, there are plenty of stimuli for a bullish insider to get rid of shares of his or her company, but only one, very obvious reason why they would buy. Several academic studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this tactic if piggybackers know where to look (learn more here).
With all of this in mind, let’s take a gander at the recent action surrounding Hugoton Royalty Trust (NYSE:HGT).
How have hedgies been trading Hugoton Royalty Trust (NYSE:HGT)?
Heading into Q2, a total of 8 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 0% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings substantially.
Of the funds we track, Royce & Associates, managed by Chuck Royce, holds the biggest position in Hugoton Royalty Trust (NYSE:HGT). Royce & Associates has a $5.2 million position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Joel Greenblatt of Gotham Asset Management, with a $1.8 million position; the fund has 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining peers that hold long positions include Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, Michael Price’s MFP Investors and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.
Seeing as Hugoton Royalty Trust (NYSE:HGT) has experienced declining sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, we can see that there exists a select few fund managers that elected to cut their entire stakes in Q1. At the top of the heap, Andrew R. Midler’s Savitr Capital sold off the biggest stake of the “upper crust” of funds we watch, comprising about $0.1 million in stock. These moves are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).
What have insiders been doing with Hugoton Royalty Trust (NYSE:HGT)?
Insider trading activity, especially when it’s bullish, is particularly usable when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past six months. Over the last 180-day time period, Hugoton Royalty Trust (NYSE:HGT) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
Let’s also review hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Hugoton Royalty Trust (NYSE:HGT). These stocks are BPZ Resources Inc (NYSE:BPZ), Pioneer Energy Services Corp (NYSE:PES), Parker Drilling Company (NYSE:PKD), MV Oil Trust (NYSE:MVO), and TransAtlantic Petroleum Ltd (NYSEAMEX:TAT). This group of stocks belong to the oil & gas drilling & exploration industry and their market caps are similar to HGT’s market cap.
