Are Institutional Investors Accumulating W&T Offshore Stock?

In 2Q17, 58 funds were buyers of W&T Offshore (WTI) stock, and 40 funds were sellers. That means that total buying funds outnumbered total selling funds by 18. As of June 30, 2017, 92 13F filers held WTI in their portfolios. None of them have WTI in their top ten holdings.

Even when we look at this from the point of view of the aggregate number of shares, for 2Q17, 13F filers increased their aggregate WTI holdings by 7.8%, or from ~62.8 million shares to ~67.7 million shares.

In a notable addition in 2Q17, JPMorgan Chase increased its WTI holding and bought ~3.13 million shares of WTI. That brought its position in WTI to ~3.15 million shares. WTI constitutes less than 0.01% of JPMorgan Chase’s portfolio.

As of June 30, 2017, W&T Offshore had ~138.0 million in common shares outstanding.

Form 13F is an SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) mandate, which needs to be submitted by all institutional investors who manage more than $100.0 million in assets.

For context, in 2Q17, 13F filers increased their aggregate holdings in oil and gas production companies Diamondback Energy (FANG), RSP Permian (RSPP), and Energen (EGN) by 5.3%, 11.8%, and 8.8%, respectively. All these companies have operations in the Permian Basin. To know more about why institutional investors are upbeat on oil and gas producers located in the Permian Basin, refer to Market Realist’s series The Dirt on the Permian Basin: Hot or Not?