How Royal Gold, Inc (USA) (RGLD) Stacks Up Against Its Peers?

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. Renaissance Technologies assembled the biggest position in Royal Gold, Inc (USA) (NASDAQ:RGLD) with $20.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group also made a $15 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are George Hall’s Clinton Group, Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management, and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Royal Gold, Inc (USA) (NASDAQ:RGLD) but similarly valued. These stocks are Scotts Miracle-Gro Co (NYSE:SMG), Weatherford International Ltd (NYSE:WFT), Gentex Corporation (NASDAQ:GNTX), and EPR Properties (NYSE:EPR). This group of stocks’ market values match RGLD’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 23 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $303 million. That figure was $192 million in RGLD’s case. Weatherford International Ltd (NYSE:WFT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Scotts Miracle-Gro Co (NYSE:SMG) is the least popular one with only 20 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Royal Gold, Inc USA) (NASDAQ:RGLD) is even less popular than SMG. Considering that hedge funds aren’t fond of this stock in relation to other companies analyzed in this article, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and understand why the smart money isn’t behind this stock. This isn’t necessarily bad news. Although it is possible that hedge funds may think the stock is overpriced and view the stock as a short candidate, they may not be very familiar with the bullish thesis. In either case more research is warranted.

Disclosure: None