Is VIST A Good Stock To Buy Now?

The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. We at Insider Monkey have plowed through 817 13F filings that hedge funds and well-known value investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of September 30th, about a month before the elections. In this article we look at what those investors think of Vista Oil & Gas, S.A.B. de C.V. (NYSE:VIST).

Is VIST a good stock to buy now? Vista Oil & Gas, S.A.B. de C.V. (NYSE:VIST) shareholders have witnessed an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds lately. Vista Oil & Gas, S.A.B. de C.V. (NYSE:VIST) was in 9 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistics is 8. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. There were 5 hedge funds in our database with VIST holdings at the end of June. Our calculations also showed that VIST isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

In the 21st century investor’s toolkit there are numerous tools market participants put to use to appraise stocks. A duo of the most innovative tools are hedge fund and insider trading signals. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best money managers can outperform the market by a solid amount (see the details here).

Seth Klarman of Baupost Group

At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 15 best blue chip stocks to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our website. Now let’s review the new hedge fund action regarding Vista Oil & Gas, S.A.B. de C.V. (NYSE:VIST).

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

At the end of September, a total of 9 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 80% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards VIST over the last 21 quarters. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

More specifically, Baupost Group was the largest shareholder of Vista Oil & Gas, S.A.B. de C.V. (NYSE:VIST), with a stake worth $9.9 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Baupost Group was Deep Basin Capital, which amassed a stake valued at $8.1 million. Oaktree Capital Management, Encompass Capital Advisors, and Mason Capital Management 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 Deep Basin Capital allocated the biggest weight to Vista Oil & Gas, S.A.B. de C.V. (NYSE:VIST), around 0.99% of its 13F portfolio. Encompass Capital Advisors is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.31 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to VIST.

Consequently, key hedge funds were breaking ground themselves. Marshall Wace LLP, managed by Paul Marshall and Ian Wace, created the biggest position in Vista Oil & Gas, S.A.B. de C.V. (NYSE:VIST). Marshall Wace LLP had $0.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Israel Englander’s Millennium Management also made a $0.3 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new VIST positions are Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Vista Oil & Gas, S.A.B. de C.V. (NYSE:VIST). These stocks are Aduro BioTech Inc (NASDAQ:ADRO), Uranium Energy Corp. (NYSE:UEC), MiX Telematics Limited (NYSE:MIXT), Otonomy Inc (NASDAQ:OTIC), Heat Biologics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTBX), Vuzix Corporation (NASDAQ:VUZI), and Mereo BioPharma Group plc (NASDAQ:MREO). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to VIST’s market value.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 7.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $22 million. That figure was $32 million in VIST’s case. Otonomy Inc (NASDAQ:OTIC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Heat Biologics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTBX) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Vista Oil & Gas, S.A.B. de C.V. (NYSE:VIST) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for VIST is 65.7. 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 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.3% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10 percentage points. These stocks gained 32.9% in 2020 through December 8th and still beat the market by 16.2 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on VIST as the stock returned 21.3% since the end of Q3 (through 12/8) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

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