Do Hedge Funds Love Cenovus Energy Inc (CVE)?

A whopping number of 13F filings filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been processed by Insider Monkey so that individual investors can look at the overall hedge fund sentiment towards the stocks included in their watchlists. These freshly-submitted public filings disclose money managers’ equity positions as of the end of the three-month period that ended September 30th, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment on Cenovus Energy Inc (NYSE:CVE).

Is Cenovus Energy Inc (NYSE:CVE) the right investment to pursue these days? Hedge funds were taking a bearish view. The number of long hedge fund bets shrunk by 2 lately. Cenovus Energy Inc (NYSE:CVE) was in 30 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 32. Our calculations also showed that CVE isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).

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. Keeping this in mind we’re going to take a glance at the fresh hedge fund action regarding Cenovus Energy Inc (NYSE:CVE).

SAC CAPITAL ADVISORS

Steven Cohen of Point72 Asset Management

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

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2021, a total of 30 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -6% from the second quarter of 2021. By comparison, 18 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in CVE a year ago. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Among these funds, Pzena Investment Management held the most valuable stake in Cenovus Energy Inc (NYSE:CVE), which was worth $127.7 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Millennium Management which amassed $112 million worth of shares. Waratah Capital Advisors, Point72 Asset Management, and Contrarius Investment Management 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 Corriente Advisors allocated the biggest weight to Cenovus Energy Inc (NYSE:CVE), around 10.5% of its 13F portfolio. Galibier Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 7.14 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to CVE.

Seeing as Cenovus Energy Inc (NYSE:CVE) has witnessed declining sentiment from the smart money, it’s easy to see that there is a sect of funds who sold off their entire stakes heading into Q4. It’s worth mentioning that Todd J. Kantor’s Encompass Capital Advisors dumped the biggest position of the 750 funds monitored by Insider Monkey, totaling about $47.8 million in stock, and Scott Bessent’s Key Square Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $14 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 2 funds heading into Q4.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Cenovus Energy Inc (NYSE:CVE) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Church & Dwight Co., Inc. (NYSE:CHD), Expeditors International of Washington, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPD), Teladoc Health, Inc (NYSE:TDOC), Enphase Energy Inc (NASDAQ:ENPH), Dynatrace, Inc. (NYSE:DT), NetApp Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP), and Teledyne Technologies Incorporated (NYSE:TDY). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble CVE’s market cap.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
CHD 20 1362889 -15
EXPD 26 452843 -3
TDOC 40 2836350 -3
ENPH 52 637786 8
DT 41 2389054 -9
NTAP 29 671456 -2
TDY 38 1703394 2
Average 35.1 1436253 -3.1

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 35.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1436 million. That figure was $718 million in CVE’s case. Enphase Energy Inc (NASDAQ:ENPH) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Church & Dwight Co., Inc. (NYSE:CHD) is the least popular one with only 20 bullish hedge fund positions. Cenovus Energy Inc (NYSE:CVE) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for CVE is 46.8. 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 gained 28.6% in 2021 through November 30th and still beat the market by 5.6 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on CVE as the stock returned 17.9% since the end of the third quarter (through 11/30) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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