Here is What Hedge Funds Think About EQT Corporation (EQT)

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 March 31st, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment on EQT Corporation (NYSE:EQT).

EQT Corporation (NYSE:EQT) has experienced a decrease in hedge fund sentiment recently. EQT Corporation (NYSE:EQT) was in 35 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 50. Our calculations also showed that EQT isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).

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

At Q1’s end, a total of 35 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -19% from one quarter earlier. On the other hand, there were a total of 30 hedge funds with a bullish position in EQT a year ago. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

More specifically, Arrowstreet Capital was the largest shareholder of EQT Corporation (NYSE:EQT), with a stake worth $58.1 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing Arrowstreet Capital was D E Shaw, which amassed a stake valued at $52.6 million. Appaloosa Management LP, Quaker Capital Investments, and Citadel Investment Group 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 Quaker Capital Investments allocated the biggest weight to EQT Corporation (NYSE:EQT), around 11.59% of its 13F portfolio. Nierenberg Investment Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 11 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to EQT.

Judging by the fact that EQT Corporation (NYSE:EQT) has experienced falling interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, logic holds that there exists a select few funds who sold off their positions entirely last quarter. At the top of the heap, Matt Smith’s Deep Basin Capital cut the largest investment of the 750 funds monitored by Insider Monkey, comprising about $26.2 million in stock. Brandon Haley’s fund, Holocene Advisors, also sold off its stock, about $12 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as total hedge fund interest fell by 8 funds last quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to EQT Corporation (NYSE:EQT). We will take a look at Chart Industries, Inc. (NYSE:GTLS), CMC Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCMP), CoreSite Realty Corp (NYSE:COR), The Descartes Systems Group Inc (NASDAQ:DSGX), TriNet Group Inc (NYSE:TNET), Helen of Troy Limited (NASDAQ:HELE), and The Ensign Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:ENSG). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to EQT’s market valuation.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 18.6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $245 million. That figure was $437 million in EQT’s case. Helen of Troy Limited (NASDAQ:HELE) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand The Descartes Systems Group Inc (NASDAQ:DSGX) is the least popular one with only 11 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks EQT Corporation (NYSE:EQT) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for EQT is 68. 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 returned 19.3% in 2021 through June 25th but still managed to beat the market by 4.8 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on EQT as the stock returned 18.6% since the end of March (through 6/25) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were clearly right about piling into this stock relative to other stocks with similar market capitalizations.

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