Here’s What Hedge Funds Think About Clean Energy Fuels Corp (CLNE)
Insider Monkey has processed numerous 13F filings of hedge funds and successful investors to create an extensive database of hedge fund holdings. The 13F filings show the hedge funds' and successful investors' positions as of the end of the first quarter. You can find write-ups about an individual hedge fund's trades on numerous financial news websites. However, in this article we will take a look at their collective moves and analyze what the smart money thinks of Clean Energy Fuels Corp (NASDAQ:CLNE) based on that data.
Is Clean Energy Fuels Corp (NASDAQ:CLNE) ready to rally soon? Hedge funds are getting more bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund positions improved by 3 in recent months. Our calculations also showed that clne isn't among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds. CLNE was in 11 hedge funds' portfolios at the end of March. There were 8 hedge funds in our database with CLNE positions at the end of the previous quarter.
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 flagship best performing hedge funds strategy returned 25.8% year to date (through May 30th) and outperformed the market even though it draws its stock picks among small-cap stocks. This strategy also outperformed the market by 40 percentage points since its inception (see the details here). That's why we believe hedge fund sentiment is a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
[caption id="attachment_30621" align="aligncenter" width="487"]
Cliff Asness of AQR Capital Management[/caption]
Let's take a peek at the recent hedge fund action regarding Clean Energy Fuels Corp (NASDAQ:CLNE).
What have hedge funds been doing with Clean Energy Fuels Corp (NASDAQ:CLNE)?
At the end of the first quarter, a total of 11 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 38% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 7 hedge funds with a bullish position in CLNE a year ago. So, let's examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
According to Insider Monkey's hedge fund database, Renaissance Technologies, managed by Jim Simons, holds the biggest position in Clean Energy Fuels Corp (NASDAQ:CLNE). Renaissance Technologies has a $25.8 million position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Millennium Management, led by Israel Englander, holding a $2.8 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other peers that hold long positions encompass D. E. Shaw's D E Shaw, Ken Griffin's Citadel Investment Group and Cliff Asness's AQR Capital Management.
Now, key money managers were breaking ground themselves. BlueCrest Capital Mgmt., managed by Michael Platt and William Reeves, established the most outsized position in Clean Energy Fuels Corp (NASDAQ:CLNE). BlueCrest Capital Mgmt. had $0.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. David Harding's Winton Capital Management also made a $0.1 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new CLNE investors: Andrew Weiss's Weiss Asset Management and Jeffrey Talpins's Element Capital Management.
Let's check out hedge fund activity in other stocks - not necessarily in the same industry as Clean Energy Fuels Corp (NASDAQ:CLNE) but similarly valued. We will take a look at i3 Verticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:IIIV), IRSA Inversiones y Representaciones Sociedad Anónima (NYSE:IRS), Gladstone Commercial Corporation (NASDAQ:GOOD), and Crossamerica Partners LP (NYSE:CAPL). This group of stocks' market valuations are closest to CLNE's market valuation.
[table] Ticker, No of HFs with positions, Total Value of HF Positions (x1000), Change in HF Position IIIV,8,66259,0 IRS,8,48594,1 GOOD,6,61639,-1 CAPL,4,6518,4 Average,6.5,45753,1 [/table]
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 6.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $46 million. That figure was $32 million in CLNE's case. i3 Verticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:IIIV) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Crossamerica Partners LP (NYSE:CAPL) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Clean Energy Fuels Corp (NASDAQ:CLNE) is more popular among hedge funds. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 6.2% in Q2 through June 19th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by nearly 3 percentage points. Unfortunately CLNE wasn't nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on CLNE were disappointed as the stock returned -15.5% during the same period and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds as 13 of these stocks already outperformed the market in Q2.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
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