Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation (NYSE:COG): Hedge Funds and Insiders Are Bearish, What Should You Do?

Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation (NYSE:COG) shareholders have witnessed a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds lately.

Cabot Oil and Gas (COG)

In the financial world, there are dozens of methods shareholders can use to monitor publicly traded companies. Some of the most under-the-radar are hedge fund and insider trading activity. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite money managers can outperform their index-focused peers by a significant amount (see just how much).

Just as integral, positive insider trading activity is a second way to break down the financial markets. Just as you’d expect, there are many incentives for an insider to get rid of shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would buy. Several empirical studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this strategy if piggybackers understand where to look (learn more here).

Consequently, we’re going to take a glance at the latest action encompassing Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation (NYSE:COG).

What does the smart money think about Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation (NYSE:COG)?

At year’s end, a total of 31 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -6% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings meaningfully.

Of the funds we track, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group had the biggest position in Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation (NYSE:COG), worth close to $133 million, comprising 0.2% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Donald Chiboucis of Columbus Circle Investors, with a $80 million position; 0.4% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other hedge funds with similar optimism include D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Sean Cullinan’s Point State Capital and Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management.

Due to the fact that Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation (NYSE:COG) has witnessed falling interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, we can see that there exists a select few fund managers that elected to cut their entire stakes heading into 2013. Interestingly, Dan Loeb’s Third Point cut the biggest investment of all the hedgies we monitor, worth about $79 million in stock.. Andreas Halvorsen’s fund, Viking Global, also cut its stock, about $25 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 2 funds heading into 2013.

How have insiders been trading Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation (NYSE:COG)?

Insider trading activity, especially when it’s bullish, is particularly usable when the company in focus has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the last six-month time period, Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation (NYSE:COG) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and 2 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

With the results demonstrated by our tactics, retail investors should always keep an eye on hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation (NYSE:COG) is an important part of this process.

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