What do Hedge Funds Think of Par Pacific Holdings, Inc. (PARR)?

The 700+ hedge funds and money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the third quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of September 30. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund positions. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards Par Pacific Holdings, Inc. (NYSEMKT:PARR).

Par Pacific Holdings, Inc. (NYSEMKT:PARR) has experienced a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds recently. PARR was in 11 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 12 hedge funds in our database with PARR positions at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare PARR to other stocks including American Railcar Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARII), NutriSystem Inc. (NASDAQ:NTRI), and Central Garden & Pet Co (NASDAQ:CENT) to get a better sense of its popularity.

In the eyes of most market participants, hedge funds are perceived as underperforming, old investment tools of years past. While there are over 8000 funds trading at the moment, Our researchers choose to focus on the aristocrats of this group, around 700 funds. These hedge fund managers direct the majority of the hedge fund industry’s total asset base, and by keeping an eye on their inimitable equity investments, Insider Monkey has figured out numerous investment strategies that have historically outperformed the S&P 500 index. Insider Monkey’s small-cap hedge fund strategy beat the S&P 500 index by 12 percentage points per annum for a decade in their back tests.

Keeping this in mind, we’re going to take a gander at the latest action surrounding Par Pacific Holdings, Inc. (NYSEMKT:PARR).

How have hedgies been trading Par Pacific Holdings, Inc. (NYSEMKT:PARR)?

At Q3’s end, a total of 11 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -8% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Andy Redleaf’s Whitebox Advisors has the number one position in Par Pacific Holdings, Inc. (NYSEMKT:PARR), worth close to $177.4 million, amounting to 7.9% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Glenn Russell Dubin of Highbridge Capital Management, with a $17.4 million position; 0.3% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other hedge funds and institutional investors that are bullish comprise Murray Stahl’s Horizon Asset Management, Howard Marks’s Oaktree Capital Management and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.

Because Par Pacific Holdings, Inc. (NYSEMKT:PARR) has witnessed a declination in interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there is a sect of hedgies that slashed their positions entirely last quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Shawn Bergerson and Martin Kalish’s Waterstone Capital Management cut the largest investment of all the hedgies followed by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $5.6 million in stock. Matthew Drapkin and Steven R. Becker’s fund, Becker Drapkin Management, also cut its stock, about $1 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 1 funds last quarter.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Par Pacific Holdings, Inc. (NYSEMKT:PARR). We will take a look at American Railcar Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARII), NutriSystem Inc. (NASDAQ:NTRI), Central Garden & Pet Co (NASDAQ:CENT), and Astec Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTE). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to PARR’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 16.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $196 million. That figure was $220 million in PARR’s case. NutriSystem Inc. (NASDAQ:NTRI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand American Railcar Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARII) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Par Pacific Holdings, Inc. (NYSEMKT:PARR) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard NTRI might be a better candidate to consider a long position.