Is Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP) a sell?
If you were to ask many of your fellow readers, hedge funds are assumed to be bloated, outdated financial tools of a period lost to current times. Although there are more than 8,000 hedge funds in operation today, Insider Monkey focuses on the elite of this club, about 525 funds. It is assumed that this group controls the lion’s share of the smart money’s total assets, and by monitoring their best equity investments, we’ve discovered a number of investment strategies that have historically outperformed the broader indices. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points a year for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve started sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have topped the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (see all of our picks from August).
Just as crucial, optimistic insider trading activity is a second way to look at the stock market universe. There are plenty of motivations for a bullish insider to sell shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would initiate a purchase. Various academic studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this method if shareholders know where to look (learn more here).
Furthermore, we’re going to study the newest info surrounding Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP).
How are hedge funds trading Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP)?
Heading into Q3, a total of 22 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -19% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings substantially.
According to our 13F database, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates had the most valuable position in Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP), worth close to $199.4 million, comprising 0.6% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Robert Bishop of Impala Asset Management, with a $104.8 million position; the fund has 5.9% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining hedge funds that hold long positions include Matt McLennan’s First Eagle Investment Management, Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management and Robert Rodriguez and Steven Romick’s First Pacific Advisors LLC.
Because Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP) has faced dropping sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, logic holds that there lies a certain “tier” of fund managers who sold off their full holdings heading into Q2. It’s worth mentioning that Jeffrey Vinik’s Vinik Asset Management cut the largest position of the 450+ funds we track, totaling an estimated $23.8 million in stock, and Matthew Tewksbury of Stevens Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund cut about $11.3 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 5 funds heading into Q2.
How have insiders been trading Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP)?
Insider buying made by high-level executives is particularly usable when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past six months. Over the latest half-year time period, Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP) has experienced 1 unique insiders buying, and 1 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
We’ll also take a look at the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP). These stocks are Nabors Industries Ltd. (NYSE:NBR), Penn West Petroleum Ltd (USA) (NYSE:PWE), QEP Resources Inc (NYSE:QEP), Whiting Petroleum Corp (NYSE:WLL), and Cheniere Energy, Inc. (NYSEAMEX:LNG). This group of stocks are in the oil & gas drilling & exploration industry and their market caps are closest to HP’s market cap.
