Billionaire Israel Englander’s Energy Stock Picks Include Apache Corporation (APA)

We track quarterly 13F filings from hundreds of hedge funds and other notable investors, including billionaire Israel Englander’s hedge fund Millennium Management. While our principal use for the information in 13Fs is in developing investment strategies (we have found, for example, that the most popular small cap stocks among hedge funds earn an average excess return of 18 percentage points per year) we also like to go through the filings from top investors to see what they might be thinking about the markets. When we analyzed Millennium’s most recent filing we noticed that the fund had several energy stocks among its largest holdings. Read on for our quick take on Millennium’s five largest energy positions by market value as of the end of March or see the full list of stocks the fund reported owning.

Credit: Apache Corporation (NYSE:APA)

Englander’s second largest holding overall was his slightly more than 1 million shares of EOG Resources Inc (NYSE:EOG). The $36 billion market cap oil and gas company has been experiencing high growth, with revenue up 27% last quarter compared to the first quarter of 2012 and earnings rising by over 50%. While the current valuation does already include some future growth, Wall Street analysts are bullish and as a result the five-year PEG ratio is 0.9. Citadel Investment Group, managed by billionaire Ken Griffin, doubled its holdings of EOG Resources Inc (NYSE:EOG) to a total of 2.6 million shares at the end of March (check out Griffin’s stock picks).

Exploration and production company Gulfport Energy Corporation (NASDAQ:GPOR) was another of Millennium’s top five picks with the filing disclosing ownership of 2.5 million shares. While profits have been fairly low on a trailing basis, the stock price is up 180% in the last year due to Gulfport’s position in emerging oil and gas plays such as the Utica, Niobrara, and Bakken. Analyst consensus for 2014 implies a forward earnings multiple of 23, however, which may be a bit high compared to the company’s peers. Renaissance Technologies, whose founder Jim Simons is now a billionaire, was also buying Gulfport Energy Corporation (NASDAQ:GPOR) during Q1 (research more stocks Renaissance was buying).