Is GTLS Stock A Buy or Sell?

Many prominent investors, including Warren Buffett, David Tepper and Stan Druckenmiller, have been cautious regarding the current bull market and missed out as the stock market reached another high in recent weeks. On the other hand, technology hedge funds weren’t timid and registered double digit market beating gains. Financials, energy and industrial stocks initially suffered the most but many of these stocks delivered strong returns since November and hedge funds actually increased their positions in these stocks. In this article we will find out how hedge fund sentiment towards Chart Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:GTLS) changed recently.

Is GTLS stock a buy? Chart Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:GTLS) was in 26 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the fourth quarter of 2020. The all time high for this statistic is 24. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. GTLS has experienced an increase in hedge fund interest of late. There were 20 hedge funds in our database with GTLS positions at the end of the third quarter. Our calculations also showed that GTLS isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q4 rankings).

Richard Driehaus of Driehaus Capital

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Do Hedge Funds Think GTLS Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At fourth quarter’s end, a total of 26 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 30% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 19 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in GTLS a year ago. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Among these funds, Fisher Asset Management held the most valuable stake in Chart Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:GTLS), which was worth $121.9 million at the end of the fourth quarter. On the second spot was Driehaus Capital which amassed $49.2 million worth of shares. Maverick Capital, Columbus Circle Investors, and GAMCO Investors were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Bourgeon Capital allocated the biggest weight to Chart Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:GTLS), around 2.37% of its 13F portfolio. Columbus Circle Investors is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 1.48 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to GTLS.

Now, some big names have been driving this bullishness. Maverick Capital, managed by Lee Ainslie, assembled the most outsized position in Chart Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:GTLS). Maverick Capital had $34.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Principal Global Investors’s Columbus Circle Investors also initiated a $33.8 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Mark Coe’s Intrinsic Edge Capital, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates, and Ryan Tolkin (CIO)’s Schonfeld Strategic Advisors.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Chart Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:GTLS). We will take a look at Eagle Materials, Inc. (NYSE:EXP), Endava plc (NYSE:DAVA), Crocs, Inc. (NASDAQ:CROX), TechnipFMC plc (NYSE:FTI), Neogen Corporation (NASDAQ:NEOG), Foot Locker, Inc. (NYSE:FL), and Upwork Inc. (NASDAQ:UPWK). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to GTLS’s market valuation.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 28.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $440 million. That figure was $331 million in GTLS’s case. Crocs, Inc. (NASDAQ:CROX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Endava plc (NYSE:DAVA) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. Chart Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:GTLS) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for GTLS is 65.8. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. Our calculations showed that top 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 81.2% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 26 percentage points. These stocks gained 12.3% in 2021 through April 19th and still beat the market by 0.9 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on GTLS as the stock returned 16.4% since the end of the fourth quarter (through 4/19) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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

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