Is Crestwood Equity Partners LP (CEQP) a Good Stock to Buy?

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 September 30, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment on Crestwood Equity Partners LP (NYSE:CEQP) .

Is Crestwood Equity Partners LP (NYSE:CEQP) a buy right now? Prominent investors are indeed getting less bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund investments went down by 2 in recent months. There were 7 hedge funds in our database with CEQP positions at the end of September. The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as Infoblox Inc (NYSE:BLOX), Noah Holdings Limited (ADR) (NYSE:NOAH), and Children’s Place Retail Stores, Inc. (NASDAQ:PLCE) to gather more data points.

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We follow over 700 hedge funds and other institutional investors and by analyzing their quarterly 13F filings, we identify stocks that they are collectively bullish on and develop investment strategies based on this data. One strategy that outperformed the market over the last year involves selecting the 100 best-performing funds and identifying the 30 mid-cap stocks that they are collectively most bullish on. Over the past year, this strategy generated returns of 18%, topping the 8% gain registered by S&P 500 ETFs. We launched this strategy 2.5 years ago and it returned more than 39% since then, vs. 22% gain registered by the S&P 500 ETFs.

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With all of this in mind, we’re going to view the recent action regarding Crestwood Equity Partners LP (NYSE:CEQP).

What have hedge funds been doing with Crestwood Equity Partners LP (NYSE:CEQP)?

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 7 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -22% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 6 hedge funds with a bullish position in CEQP at the beginning of this year. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

CEQP Chart

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Daniel S. Och’s OZ Management has the number one position in Crestwood Equity Partners LP (NYSE:CEQP), worth close to $13.9 million, comprising 0.1% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Renaissance Technologies, one of the largest hedge funds in the world, with a $3.4 million position; less than 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other hedge funds and institutional investors that hold long positions consist of James Dondero’s Highland Capital Management, Clinton Group and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group. We should note that none of these elite funds are among our list of the 100 best performing elite funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.

We already know that not all hedge funds are bullish on the stock and some hedge funds actually cut their positions entirely. Intriguingly, Alec Litowitz and Ross Laser’s Magnetar Capital cut the largest position of all the investors watched by Insider Monkey, totaling an estimated $5.1 million in stock, and Brian Gaines’s Springhouse Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund cut about $0.4 million worth of shares.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Crestwood Equity Partners LP (NYSE:CEQP). We will take a look at Infoblox Inc (NYSE:BLOX), Noah Holdings Limited (ADR) (NYSE:NOAH), Children’s Place Retail Stores, Inc. (NASDAQ:PLCE), and American States Water Co (NYSE:AWR). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble CEQP’s market cap.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
BLOX 29 437605 4
NOAH 8 52556 2
PLCE 22 216244 -7
AWR 8 42205 0

As you can see these stocks had an average of 16.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $187 million. That figure was $20 million in CEQP’s case. Infoblox Inc (NYSE:BLOX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Noah Holdings Limited (ADR) (NYSE:NOAH) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Crestwood Equity Partners LP (NYSE:CEQP) is even less popular than NOAH. 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.

Disclosure: None