Is Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (HP) A Good Stock To Buy?

As one would reasonably expect, key hedge funds have jumped into Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP) headfirst. Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, assembled the most outsized call position in Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP). According to its latest 13F filing, the fund had $13.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ed Beddow and William Tichy’s Beddow Capital Management also initiated a $8.2 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new HP positions are Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, and David Keidan’s Buckingham Capital Management.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Antero Resources Corp (NYSE:AR), Comerica Incorporated (NYSE:CMA), Splunk Inc (NASDAQ:SPLK), and Alaska Air Group, Inc. (NYSE:ALK). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble HP’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 37 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was a little over $1 billion. That figure was a modest $287 million in HP’s case. Comerica Incorporated (NYSE:CMA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Splunk Inc (NASDAQ:SPLK) is the least popular one with only 32 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP) is even less popular than SPLK. 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.