Should I Buy Phillips 66 (PSX)?

We at Insider Monkey have gone over 867 13F filings that hedge funds and prominent investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of September 30th. In this article, we look at what those funds think of Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX) based on that data.

Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX) investors should be aware of an increase in hedge fund interest of late. Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX) was in 34 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 47. Our calculations also showed that PSX isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).

Ryan Tolkin, CIO of Schonfeld Strategic Advisors

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium prices have more than doubled over the past year, so we go through lists like the 10 best EV stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. With all of this in mind we’re going to take a look at the new hedge fund action surrounding Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX).

Do Hedge Funds Think PSX Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At third quarter’s end, a total of 34 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 31% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards PSX over the last 25 quarters. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Is PSX A Good Stock To Buy?

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, D E Shaw, managed by D. E. Shaw, holds the biggest position in Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX). D E Shaw has a $138.8 million position in the stock, comprising 0.1% of its 13F portfolio. On D E Shaw’s heels is Israel Englander of Millennium Management, with a $90.3 million position; the fund has 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining peers with similar optimism consist of Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Renaissance Technologies and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position SIR Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX), around 2.11% of its 13F portfolio. Hi-Line Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 2.11 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to PSX.

Now, key money managers have jumped into Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX) headfirst. Renaissance Technologies, assembled the most outsized position in Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX). Renaissance Technologies had $47.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ryan Tolkin (CIO)’s Schonfeld Strategic Advisors also initiated a $16.7 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new PSX positions are Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Liberty Broadband Corp (NASDAQ:LBRDA), Zimmer Biomet Holdings Inc (NYSE:ZBH), Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd (NYSE:CHT), Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE:LUV), XPeng Inc. (NYSE:XPEV), Equity Residential (NYSE:EQR), and Keysight Technologies Inc (NYSE:KEYS). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to PSX’s market valuation.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
LBRDA 24 885745 -4
ZBH 47 1664979 -1
CHT 6 156827 -1
LUV 39 729508 -10
XPEV 25 657189 6
EQR 32 558805 1
KEYS 30 675201 -2
Average 29 761179 -1.6

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 29 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $761 million. That figure was $409 million in PSX’s case. Zimmer Biomet Holdings Inc (NYSE:ZBH) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd (NYSE:CHT) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for PSX is 65.8. 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. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 28.6% in 2021 through November 30th and beat the market again by 5.6 percentage points. Unfortunately PSX wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on PSX were disappointed as the stock returned -0.1% since the end of September (through 11/30) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as many of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

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