Hedge Funds Are Dumping Whiting Petroleum Corp (WLL)

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Since Whiting Petroleum Corp (NYSE:WLL) has faced a decline in interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s safe to say that there were a few hedge funds that elected to cut their full holdings heading into Q4. Interestingly, Dan Loeb’s Third Point dumped the biggest position of all the hedgies monitored by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $75.9 million in stock, and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $25.8 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as total hedge fund interest fell by 6 funds heading into Q4.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Whiting Petroleum Corp (NYSE:WLL). We will take a look at Generac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC), PBF Energy Inc (NYSE:PBF), Select Income REIT (NYSE:SIR), and Yelp Inc (NYSE:YELP). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to WLL’s market valuation.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
GNRC 16 159459 3
PBF 23 497804 -1
SIR 12 80113 -2
YELP 40 1087703 -5

As you can see these stocks had an average of 22.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $456 million. That figure was $636 million in WLL’s case. Yelp Inc (NYSE:YELP) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Select Income REIT (NYSE:SIR) is the least popular one with only 12 bullish hedge fund positions. Whiting Petroleum Corp (NYSE:WLL) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard YELP might be a better candidate to consider a long position.

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