Do Hedge Funds Love Energy Transfer Partners LP (ETP)?

Seeing as Energy Transfer Partners LP (NYSE:ETP) has witnessed no changed in sentiment from the smart money, we should take a look at a select few money managers who were dropping their full holdings by the end of the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Christopher A. Winham’s Tide Point Capital said goodbye to the biggest position of the “upper crust” of funds monitored by Insider Monkey, worth about $76.1 million in stock. Marc Lisker, Glenn Fuhrman and John Phelan’s fund, MSDC Management, also dropped its holding, about $12.3 million worth of ETP shares. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Energy Transfer Partners LP (NYSE:ETP). We will take a look at Ecopetrol S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:EC), Sirius XM Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:SIRI), The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR), and Franklin Resources, Inc. (NYSE:BEN). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to ETP’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 24 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $956 million. That figure was $957 million in ETP’s case. Franklin Resources, Inc. (NYSE:BEN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Ecopetrol S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:EC) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Energy Transfer Partners LP (NYSE:ETP) 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 BEN might be a better candidate to consider a long position.

Disclosure: none.