Is Murphy Oil Corporation (MUR) A Good Stock To Buy?

Consequently, key money managers were breaking ground themselves. Nokota Management, led by Matthew Knauer and Mina Faltas, initiated the biggest call position in Murphy Oil Corporation (NYSE:MUR). Nokota Management had $22.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw also made a $5.6 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies, and Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Murphy Oil Corporation (NYSE:MUR). We will take a look at VCA Antech Inc (NASDAQ:WOOF), MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX), Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE:HLF), and Empresa Nacional de Electricidad S.A. (NYSE:EOCC). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble MUR’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 27 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $932 million. That figure was $392 million in MUR’s case. Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE:HLF) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Empresa Nacional de Electricidad S.A. (NYSE:EOCC) is the least popular one with only 11 bullish hedge fund positions. Murphy Oil Corporation (NYSE:MUR) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard HLF might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: None