Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (HP)

In this article we will analyze whether Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP) is a good investment right now by following the lead of some of the best investors in the world and piggybacking their ideas. There’s no better way to get these firms’ immense resources and analytical capabilities working for us than to follow their lead into their best ideas. While not all of these picks will be winners, our research shows that these picks historically outperformed the market by double digits annually.

Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP) shareholders have witnessed an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers recently. Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP) was in 25 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 33. There were 15 hedge funds in our database with HP holdings at the end of June. Our calculations also showed that HP isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium prices have more than doubled over the past year, so we go through lists like the 10 best EV stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. With all of this in mind we’re going to go over the new hedge fund action regarding Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP).

Eric Sprott Sprott Asset Management

Eric Sprott of Sprott Asset Management

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

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 25 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 67% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 31 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in HP a year ago. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were adding to their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

Among these funds, Two Sigma Advisors held the most valuable stake in Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP), which was worth $30.6 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Fisher Asset Management which amassed $25.6 million worth of shares. Fairfax Financial Holdings, Point72 Asset Management, and Sprott Asset Management 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 Covalent Capital Partners allocated the biggest weight to Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP), around 2.84% of its 13F portfolio. Kettle Hill Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 1.31 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to HP.

As aggregate interest increased, key hedge funds have jumped into Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP) headfirst. Point72 Asset Management, managed by Steve Cohen, assembled the most outsized position in Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP). Point72 Asset Management had $13.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Israel Englander’s Millennium Management also initiated a $7.2 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new HP positions are Andrew Kurita’s Kettle Hill Capital Management, Mike Masters’s Masters Capital Management, and Clint Carlson’s Carlson Capital.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP). We will take a look at NorthWestern Corporation (NASDAQ:NWE), Hecla Mining Company (NYSE:HL), Badger Meter, Inc. (NYSE:BMI), Integer Holdings Corporation (NYSE:ITGR), Graham Holdings Co (NYSE:GHC), Pebblebrook Hotel Trust (NYSE:PEB), and Terex Corporation (NYSE:TEX). All of these stocks’ market caps are similar to HP’s market cap.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
NWE 14 37801 -1
HL 15 101851 -5
BMI 16 188536 -3
ITGR 22 151524 -1
GHC 24 457538 1
PEB 17 63913 0
TEX 25 358521 -2
Average 19 194241 -1.6

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 19 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $194 million. That figure was $141 million in HP’s case. Terex Corporation (NYSE:TEX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand NorthWestern Corporation (NASDAQ:NWE) is the least popular one with only 14 bullish hedge fund positions. Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for HP is 82.7. 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. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. 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 gained 31.1% in 2021 through December 9th and beat the market again by 5.1 percentage points. Unfortunately HP wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on HP were disappointed as the stock returned -10.2% since the end of September (through 12/9) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as many of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

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