What’s a smart Oasis Petroleum Inc. (NYSE:OAS) to do?
At the moment, there are many metrics market participants can use to watch the equity markets. A couple of the most useful are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top hedge fund managers can outclass the broader indices by a healthy amount (see just how much).
Equally as crucial, positive insider trading activity is another way to analyze the stock market universe. Just as you’d expect, there are plenty of reasons for an executive to get rid of shares of his or her company, but only one, very obvious reason why they would behave bullishly. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this tactic if shareholders know where to look (learn more here).
What’s more, we’re going to study the recent info surrounding Oasis Petroleum Inc. (NYSE:OAS).
What have hedge funds been doing with Oasis Petroleum Inc. (NYSE:OAS)?
At the end of the second quarter, a total of 22 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 0% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes significantly.
When using filings from the hedgies we track, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group had the most valuable position in Oasis Petroleum Inc. (NYSE:OAS), worth close to $83 million, comprising 0.1% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Steven Cohen of SAC Capital Advisors, with a $62.1 million position; the fund has 0.3% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other peers that are bullish include Donald Chiboucis’s Columbus Circle Investors, Millennium Management Subsidiary’s Decade Capital Management and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.
Due to the fact Oasis Petroleum Inc. (NYSE:OAS) has experienced bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s easy to see that there were a few money managers that slashed their positions entirely in Q1. Interestingly, Louis Bacon’s Moore Global Investments dumped the largest position of the 450+ funds we track, worth close to $32.4 million in stock, and Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $8.4 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).
How are insiders trading Oasis Petroleum Inc. (NYSE:OAS)?
Legal insider trading, particularly when it’s bullish, is most useful when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the last six-month time frame, Oasis Petroleum Inc. (NYSE:OAS) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
We’ll also take a look at the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Oasis Petroleum Inc. (NYSE:OAS). These stocks are Ultra Petroleum Corp. (NYSE:UPL), WPX Energy Inc (NYSE:WPX), SM Energy Co. (NYSE:SM), Energen Corporation (NYSE:EGN), and Gulfport Energy Corporation (NASDAQ:GPOR). All of these stocks are in the independent oil & gas industry and their market caps match OAS’s market cap.
| Company Name | # of Hedge Funds | # of Insiders Buying | # of Insiders Selling |
| Ultra Petroleum Corp. (NYSE:UPL) | 21 | 0 | 0 |
| WPX Energy Inc (NYSE:WPX) | 23 | 0 | 0 |
| SM Energy Co. (NYSE:SM) | 23 | 0 | 0 |
| Energen Corporation (NYSE:EGN) | 17 | 0 | 0 |
| Gulfport Energy Corporation (NASDAQ:GPOR) | 27 | 0 | 0 |
Using the returns demonstrated by our tactics, average investors must always keep one eye on hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Oasis Petroleum Inc. (NYSE:OAS) shareholders fit into this picture quite nicely.
