Did The Smart Money Get CNX Resources Corporation (CNX) Right?

The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey have plowed through 867 13F filings that hedge funds and well-known value investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of September 30th, when the S&P 500 Index was trading around the 4300 level. Since then investors decided to bet on the economic recovery and a stock market rebound even though we experienced a temporary correction in January. In this article you are going to find out whether hedge funds thought CNX Resources Corporation (NYSE:CNX) was a good investment heading into the fourth quarter and how the stock traded in comparison to the top hedge fund picks.

CNX Resources Corporation (NYSE:CNX) was in 34 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 38. CNX investors should be aware of an increase in hedge fund sentiment of late. There were 30 hedge funds in our database with CNX holdings at the end of June. Our calculations also showed that CNX isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).

Fred DiSanto Ancora Advisors

Fred DiSanto of Ancora Advisors

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium prices have more than doubled over the past year, so we go through lists like the 10 best EV stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. With all of this in mind we’re going to go over the fresh hedge fund action encompassing CNX Resources Corporation (NYSE:CNX).

Do Hedge Funds Think CNX Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At third quarter’s end, a total of 34 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 13% from the second quarter of 2021. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards CNX over the last 25 quarters. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

Is CNX A Good Stock To Buy?

More specifically, Southeastern Asset Management was the largest shareholder of CNX Resources Corporation (NYSE:CNX), with a stake worth $355.4 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Southeastern Asset Management was D E Shaw, which amassed a stake valued at $63.2 million. Aequim Alternative Investments, Graham Capital Management, and Quaker Capital Investments were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Southeastern Asset Management allocated the biggest weight to CNX Resources Corporation (NYSE:CNX), around 6.74% of its 13F portfolio. Quaker Capital Investments is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 3.97 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to CNX.

Consequently, some big names were breaking ground themselves. Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, created the biggest position in CNX Resources Corporation (NYSE:CNX). Citadel Investment Group had $8.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Renaissance Technologies also made a $6.3 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Jerome L. Simon’s Lonestar Capital Management, Peter Schliemann’s Rutabaga Capital Management, and Frederick DiSanto’s Ancora Advisors.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to CNX Resources Corporation (NYSE:CNX). These stocks are Green Dot Corporation (NYSE:GDOT), Domtar Corporation (NYSE:UFS), Enovix Corporation (NASDAQ:ENVX), First Bancorp (NYSE:FBP), Cadence Bancorporation (NYSE:CADE), Yelp Inc (NYSE:YELP), and American Equity Investment Life Holding Company (NYSE:AEL). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to CNX’s market value.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
GDOT 23 575860 1
UFS 21 355182 -8
ENVX 23 661835 23
FBP 26 253717 1
CADE 24 113674 -1
YELP 26 534890 -1
AEL 20 170592 0
Average 23.3 380821 2.1

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 23.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $381 million. That figure was $526 million in CNX’s case. First Bancorp (NYSE:FBP) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand American Equity Investment Life Holding Company (NYSE:AEL) is the least popular one with only 20 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks CNX Resources Corporation (NYSE:CNX) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for CNX is 85.8. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks returned 29.6% in 2021 and managed to beat the market by another 3.6 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on CNX as the stock returned 17.5% since the end of September (through 1/31) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were clearly right about piling into this stock relative to other stocks with similar market capitalizations.

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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.