Is Total SA (ADR) (TOT) A Better Stock Than Its Peers?

Like everyone else, successful investors make mistakes. Some of their top consensus picks, such as Valeant and SunEdison, have not done well during the last 12 months due to various reasons. Nevertheless, the data show successful investors’ consensus picks have done well on average. The top 30 mid-cap stocks (market caps between $1 billion and $10 billion) among hedge funds delivered an average return of 18% during the last four quarters. S&P 500 Index returned only 7.6% during the same period and less than 49% of its constituents managed to beat this return. Because their consensus picks have done well, we pay attention to what successful funds and billionaire investors think before doing extensive research on a stock. In this article, we take a closer look at Total SA (ADR) (NYSE:TOT) from the perspective of those successful funds.

Total SA (ADR) (NYSE:TOT) has seen a decrease in hedge fund sentiment of late. TOT was in 14 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2016. There were 16 hedge funds in our database with TOT positions at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare TOT to other stocks including Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD), BP plc (ADR) (NYSE:BP), and Sanofi SA (ADR) (NYSE:SNY) to get a better sense of its popularity.

Now, let’s take a gander at the key action encompassing Total SA (ADR) (NYSE:TOT).

How are hedge funds trading Total SA (ADR) (NYSE:TOT)?

At Q3’s end, a total of 14 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -13% from the second quarter of 2016. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards TOT over the last 5 quarters. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Michael Messner’s Seminole Capital (Investment Mgmt) has the most valuable position in Total SA (ADR) (NYSE:TOT), worth close to $25.9 million, comprising 4.4% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Kenneth Tropin of Graham Capital Management, with a $9.1 million position; the fund has 0.3% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other hedge funds and institutional investors that hold long positions contain David Costen Haley’s HBK Investments, Russell Hawkins’s Hawkins Capital and Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management. 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.

Because Total SA (ADR) (NYSE:TOT) has faced declining sentiment from hedge fund managers, it’s easy to see that there exists a select few hedge funds that elected to cut their positions entirely last quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital sold off the largest investment of all the investors tracked by Insider Monkey, worth close to $60 million in stock. Steve Cohen’s fund, Point72 Asset Management, also said goodbye to its stock, about $29.7 million worth.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Total SA (ADR) (NYSE:TOT) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD), BP plc (ADR) (NYSE:BP), Sanofi SA (ADR) (NYSE:SNY), and Kraft Heinz Co (NASDAQ:KHC). All of these stocks’ market caps are similar to TOT’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 49.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $9121 million. That figure was $68 million in TOT’s case. Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand BP plc (ADR) (NYSE:BP) is the least popular one with only 30 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Total SA (ADR) (NYSE:TOT) is even less popular than BP. 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.