Is Western Gas Partners, LP (WES) A Good Stock To Buy?

With general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, specific money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Wexford Capital, led by Charles Davidson, created the largest position in Western Gas Partners, LP (NYSE:WES). Wexford Capital had $7.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Richard Driehaus’ Driehaus Capital also made a $4.4 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, and Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Western Gas Partners, LP (NYSE:WES) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Sabre Corp (NASDAQ:SABR), UGI Corp (NYSE:UGI), Affiliated Managers Group, Inc. (NYSE:AMG), and NiSource Inc. (NYSE:NI). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to WES’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 26 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $840 million. That figure was just $35 million in WES’s case. Affiliated Managers Group, Inc. (NYSE:AMG) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand UGI Corp (NYSE:UGI) is the least popular one with only 16 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Western Gas Partners, LP (NYSE:WES) is even less popular than UGI. 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.

Disclosure: None