In today’s marketplace, there are tons of gauges market participants can use to monitor the equity markets. Some of the most innovative are hedge fund and insider trading movement. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best money managers can beat the broader indices by a healthy margin (see just how much).
Just as useful, bullish insider trading activity is a second way to analyze the marketplace. Just as you’d expect, there are a number of incentives for a bullish insider to cut shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would buy. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this tactic if piggybackers understand what to do (learn more here).
Furthermore, let’s discuss the newest info surrounding Western Refining, Inc. (NYSE:WNR).
What does the smart money think about Western Refining, Inc. (NYSE:WNR)?
At Q2’s end, a total of 25 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 0% from the previous quarter. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings meaningfully.
Out of the hedge funds we follow, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies had the largest position in Western Refining, Inc. (NYSE:WNR), worth close to $103.4 million, accounting for 0.3% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Israel Englander of Millennium Management, with a $36.4 million position; the fund has 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining hedgies with similar optimism include Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw and Steven Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors.
Judging by the fact that Western Refining, Inc. (NYSE:WNR) has experienced bearish sentiment from upper-tier hedge fund managers, it’s safe to say that there exists a select few hedgies who were dropping their full holdings last quarter. Intriguingly, Sean Cullinan’s Point State Capital cut the biggest investment of the “upper crust” of funds we track, worth an estimated $35.3 million in stock, and John Overdeck and David Siegel of Two Sigma Advisors was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $11 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as total hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).
How are insiders trading Western Refining, Inc. (NYSE:WNR)?
Insider buying made by high-level executives is particularly usable when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the latest half-year time period, Western Refining, Inc. (NYSE:WNR) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
We’ll go over the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Western Refining, Inc. (NYSE:WNR). These stocks are InterOil Corporation (USA) (NYSE:IOC), PBF Energy Inc (NYSE:PBF), Northern Tier Energy LP (NYSE:NTI), World Fuel Services Corporation (NYSE:INT), and Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical Co. (ADR) (NYSE:SHI). This group of stocks are in the oil & gas refining & marketing industry and their market caps resemble WNR’s market cap.
| Company Name | # of Hedge Funds | # of Insiders Buying | # of Insiders Selling |
| InterOil Corporation (USA) (NYSE:IOC) | 17 | 0 | 0 |
| PBF Energy Inc (NYSE:PBF) | 13 | 0 | 0 |
| Northern Tier Energy LP (NYSE:NTI) | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| World Fuel Services Corporation (NYSE:INT) | 10 | 0 | 0 |
| Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical Co. (ADR) (NYSE:SHI) | 0 | 0 |
Using the results demonstrated by our studies, average investors should always track hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Western Refining, Inc. (NYSE:WNR) is no exception.
