Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Willbros Group Inc (WG)

Investing in hedge funds can bring large profits, but it’s not for everybody, since hedge funds are available only for high-net-worth individuals. They generate significant returns for investors to justify their large fees and they allocate a lot of time and employ a complex analysis to determine the best stocks to invest in. A particularly interesting group of stocks that hedge funds like is the small-caps. The huge amount of capital does not allow hedge funds to invest a lot in small-caps, but our research showed that their most popular small-cap ideas are less efficiently priced and generate stronger returns than their large- and mega-cap picks and the broader market. That is why we follow the hedge fund activity in the small-cap space.

Is Willbros Group Inc (NYSE:WG) going to take off soon? The best stock pickers are indeed reducing their bets on the stock. The number of bullish hedge fund positions that are disclosed in regulatory 13F filings suffered a reduction of 3 in recent months. There were 7 hedge funds in our database with WG positions at the end of the 2016 third quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare WG to other stocks including Stonegate Mortageg Corp (NYSE:SGM), Safe Bulkers, Inc. (NYSE:SB), and Prudential Bancorp, Inc. of PA (NASDAQ:PBIP) to get a better sense of its popularity.

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

With all of this in mind, we’re going to take a look at the latest action regarding Willbros Group Inc (NYSE:WG).

How are hedge funds trading Willbros Group Inc (NYSE:WG)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 7 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a drop of 30% from the second quarter of 2016. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards WG over the last 5 quarters. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Jeffrey Gendell’s Tontine Asset Management has the biggest position in Willbros Group Inc (NYSE:WG), worth close to $6.5 million, amounting to 1% of its total 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is Chuck Royce of Royce & Associates, with a $2.4 million position; the fund has less than 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other professional money managers that are bullish consist of Renaissance Technologies, one of the largest hedge funds in the world, D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw and Paul Tudor Jones’ Tudor Investment Corp. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.

Now that we’ve mentioned the most bullish investors, let’s also take a look at some funds that said goodbye to their entire stakes in the stock during the third quarter. Interestingly, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group said goodbye to the biggest position of all the investors studied by Insider Monkey, comprising about $0.3 million in stock, and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $0.2 million worth of shares.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Willbros Group Inc (NYSE:WG) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Stonegate Mortageg Corp (NYSE:SGM), Safe Bulkers, Inc. (NYSE:SB), Prudential Bancorp, Inc. of PA (NASDAQ:PBIP), and Ellington Residential Mortgage REIT (NYSE:EARN). This group of stocks’ market valuations match WG’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $16 million. That figure was $11 million in WG’s case. Stonegate Mortageg Corp (NYSE:SGM) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Prudential Bancorp, Inc. of PA (NASDAQ:PBIP) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Willbros Group Inc (NYSE:WG) is more popular among hedge funds. Considering that hedge funds are fond of this stock in relation to its market cap peers, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and potentially include it in your portfolio.

Disclosure: none.