Is Atwood Oceanics, Inc. (ATW) A Good Stock To Buy?

Investing in hedge funds can bring large profits, but it’s not for everybody, since hedge funds are available only for high-net-worth individuals. They generate significant returns for investors to justify their large fees and they allocate a lot of time and employ a complex analysis to determine the best stocks to invest in. A particularly interesting group of stocks that hedge funds like is the small-caps. The huge amount of capital does not allow hedge funds to invest a lot in small-caps, but our research showed that their most popular small-cap ideas are less efficiently priced and generate stronger returns than their large- and mega-cap picks and the broader market. That is why we follow the hedge fund activity in the small-cap space.

The stock that we are going to discuss in this article is Atwood Oceanics, Inc. (NYSE:ATW). During the third quarter, the number of funds from our database long the stock decreased by five. At the end of this article we will also compare ATW to other stocks including Keryx Biopharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:KERX), Aceto Corporation (NASDAQ:ACET), and FTD Companies Inc (NASDAQ:FTD) to get a better sense of its popularity.

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

oneinchpunch/Shutterstock.com

With all of this in mind, we’re going to take a gander at the recent action surrounding Atwood Oceanics, Inc. (NYSE:ATW).

Hedge fund activity in Atwood Oceanics, Inc. (NYSE:ATW)

At the end of September, 15 investors tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on Atwood Oceanics, versus 20 funds a quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards ATW over the last five quarters. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Arrowstreet Capital, led by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell, holds the largest position in Atwood Oceanics, Inc. (NYSE:ATW). Arrowstreet Capital has a $21.8 million position in the stock, comprising 0.1% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Millennium Management, one of the 10 biggest funds in the world, with a $13.6 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining professional money managers that hold long positions include Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management, Till Bechtolsheimer’s Arosa Capital Management, and Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management. We should note that Arosa Capital Management is among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.