Is GLOG A Good Stock To Buy Now?

After several tireless days we have finished crunching the numbers from nearly 817 13F filings issued by the elite hedge funds and other investment firms that we track at Insider Monkey, which disclosed those firms’ equity portfolios as of September 30th. The results of that effort will be put on display in this article, as we share valuable insight into the smart money sentiment towards GasLog Ltd (NYSE:GLOG).

Is GLOG a good stock to buy now? GasLog Ltd (NYSE:GLOG) shareholders have witnessed a decrease in hedge fund sentiment lately. GasLog Ltd (NYSE:GLOG) was in 7 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistics is 16. Our calculations also showed that GLOG isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

In the financial world there are a large number of tools investors have at their disposal to grade stocks. A pair of the most under-the-radar tools are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outperform the broader indices by a solid amount. Insider Monkey’s monthly stock picks returned 113% since March 2017 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 66 percentage points. Our short strategy outperformed the S&P 500 short ETFs by 20 percentage points annually (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 5 best cheap stocks to buy according to Ray Dalio to identify stocks with upside potential. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our website. Keeping this in mind we’re going to view the new hedge fund action regarding GasLog Ltd (NYSE:GLOG).

What have hedge funds been doing with GasLog Ltd (NYSE:GLOG)?

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2020, a total of 7 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -46% from the second quarter of 2020. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards GLOG over the last 21 quarters. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

More specifically, Renaissance Technologies was the largest shareholder of GasLog Ltd (NYSE:GLOG), with a stake worth $3.7 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Renaissance Technologies was Millennium Management, which amassed a stake valued at $1.6 million. Arrowstreet Capital, Algert Coldiron Investors, 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 Algert Coldiron Investors allocated the biggest weight to GasLog Ltd (NYSE:GLOG), around 0.1% of its 13F portfolio. Renaissance Technologies is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.0037 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to GLOG.

Because GasLog Ltd (NYSE:GLOG) has witnessed bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, we can see that there lies a certain “tier” of hedge funds who were dropping their positions entirely in the third quarter. Intriguingly, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates sold off the biggest stake of all the hedgies followed by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $1.1 million in stock. Michael Gelband’s fund, ExodusPoint Capital, also said goodbye to its stock, about $0.6 million worth. These moves are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 6 funds in the third quarter.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to GasLog Ltd (NYSE:GLOG). These stocks are Citizens & Northern Corporation (NASDAQ:CZNC), Uxin Limited (NASDAQ:UXIN), Tellurian Inc. (NASDAQ:TELL), International Tower Hill Mines Ltd (NYSE:THM), Applied Optoelectronics Inc (NASDAQ:AAOI), Graybug Vision, Inc. (NASDAQ:GRAY), and Sierra Bancorp (NASDAQ:BSRR). This group of stocks’ market valuations match GLOG’s market valuation.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 6.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $49 million. That figure was $7 million in GLOG’s case. Graybug Vision, Inc. (NASDAQ:GRAY) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Tellurian Inc. (NASDAQ:TELL) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. GasLog Ltd (NYSE:GLOG) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for GLOG is 40.7. 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. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.3% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10 percentage points. These stocks gained 31.6% in 2020 through December 2nd and still beat the market by 16 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on GLOG as the stock returned 12.6% since the end of Q3 (through 12/2) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

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