Hedge Funds Aren’t Crazy About ONEOK, Inc. (OKE) Anymore

Seeing as ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE) has faced bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, we can see that there was a specific group of hedgies who were dropping their entire stakes in the third quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group said goodbye to the largest position of all the hedgies watched by Insider Monkey, valued at about $25.1 million in stock. George Soros’s fund, Soros Fund Management, also said goodbye to its stock, about $15 million worth. These moves are interesting, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 2 funds in the third quarter.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE) but similarly valued. These stocks are W.R. Grace & Co. (NYSE:GRA), W.R. Berkley Corporation (NYSE:WRB), The AES Corporation (NYSE:AES), and Airgas, Inc. (NYSE:ARG). This group of stocks’ market caps match OKE’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 32.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1,151 million. That figure was $185 million in OKE’s case. W.R. Grace & Co. (NYSE:GRA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand W.R. Berkley Corporation (NYSE:WRB) is the least popular one with only 22 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE) is even less popular than WRB. 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.