Hedge Funds’ Top Energy Picks Show Strong Gains

#4 Pioneer Natural Resources (NYSE:PXD)

– Investors with Long Positions (as of December 31): 57

– Aggregate Value of Investors’ Holdings (as of December 31): $4.07 billion

Pioneer Natural Resources (NYSE:PXD) saw only a slight drop in its popularity among the funds we track during the fourth quarter with the number of investors with long positions in the stock inching down by one and the aggregate value of their holdings declining marginally by 3.9%. Notable investors that boosted their stake in Pioneer Natural Resources (NYSE:PXD) substantially during the fourth quarter included billionaire Israel Englander‘s Millennium Management, which increased its holding by 78% to 2.16 million shares. Pioneer Natural Resources’ stock has been on a gradual rise since mid-February, ending the first quarter up by 12.2%. In the last few months the company has managed to improve its liquidity by selling non-core assets and through a secondary offering, which has been appreciated by analysts. On April 7, analysts at Citigroup reiterated their ‘Buy’ rating on the stock, while upping their price target on it to $165 from $145, which represents a potential upside of over 14% from the stock’s current trading price.

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#3 Macquarie Infrastructure Corp (NYSE:MIC)

– Investors with Long Positions (as of December 31): 58

– Aggregate Value of Investors’ Holdings (as of December 31): $1.32 billion

Though the ownership of Macquarie Infrastructure Corp (NYSE:MIC) among funds from our database slid by 16% during the fourth quarter, the decline of the aggregate value of their holdings stood at 10.41%. Billionaire Mario Gabelli‘s GAMCO Investors was one of the investors that upped its stake in the company during the fourth quarter, by 10% to 479,215 shares. Macquarie Infrastructure Corp (NYSE:MIC) is the only stock in this list, which is currently trading in the red for 2016, down 5.53% year-to-date. However, that decline has helped in increasing the stock’s annual dividend yield, which currently stands at nearly 7%. Furthermore, the company intends to increase its distribution per share by 16.6% this year. For its fiscal 2016 first quarter, analysts project the company to report EPS of $0.47 on revenue of $434.44 million versus the per share loss of $1.22 on revenue of $398.50 million it had reported for the same quarter last year.

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