PetroChina Company Limited (ADR) (PTR): Are Hedge Funds Right About This Stock?

Since PetroChina Company Limited (ADR) (NYSE:PTR) has gone through a lull in interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s easy to see that there lies a certain “tier” of hedgies that decided to sell off their entire stakes by the end of the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Michael Platt and William Reeves’s BlueCrest Capital Mgmt. got rid of the biggest stake of the 700 funds studied by Insider Monkey, totaling about $3.4 million in stock, and Matthew Tewksbury’s Stevens Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $0.3 million worth of shares.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to PetroChina Company Limited (ADR) (NYSE:PTR). These stocks are Medtronic, Inc. (NYSE:MDT), British American Tobacco PLC (ADR) (NYSEAMEX:BTI), TOTAL S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:TOT), and Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to PTR’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 40 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $2371 million. That figure was $36 million in PTR’s case. Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand TOTAL S.A. (ADR) (NYSE:TOT) is the least popular one with only 14 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks PetroChina Company Limited (ADR) (NYSE:PTR) is even less popular than TOT. 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.