Reputable billionaire investors such as Nelson Peltz and David Tepper generate exorbitant profits for their wealthy accredited investors (a minimum of $1 million in investable assets would be required to invest in a hedge fund and most successful hedge funds won’t accept your savings unless you commit at least $5 million) by pinpointing winning small-cap stocks. There is little or no publicly-available information at all on some of these small companies, which makes it hard for an individual investor to pin down a winner within the small-cap space. However, hedge funds and other big asset managers can do the due diligence and analysis for you instead, thanks to their highly-skilled research teams and vast resources to conduct an appropriate evaluation process. Looking for potential winners within the small-cap galaxy of stocks? We believe following the smart money is a good starting point.

Is Gulfport Energy Corporation (NASDAQ:GPOR) undervalued? Prominent investors are in a pessimistic mood. The number of bullish hedge fund bets fell by 6 lately. The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as Charles River Laboratories (NYSE:CRL), AGCO Corporation (NYSE:AGCO), and Gramercy Property Trust Inc (NYSE:GPT) to gather more data points.

We follow over 700 hedge funds and other institutional investors and by analyzing their quarterly 13F filings, we identify stocks that they are collectively bullish on and develop investment strategies based on this data. One strategy that outperformed the market over the last year, involves selecting the 100 best-performing funds and identifying the 30 mid-cap stocks that they are collectively most bullish on. Over the past year, this strategy generated returns of 18%, topping the 8% gain registered by S&P 500 ETFs.

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With all of this in mind, we’re going to check out the key action regarding Gulfport Energy Corporation.

What have hedge funds been doing with Gulfport Energy Corporation?

At Q3’s end, a total of 34 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, down 15% from the previous quarter. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Viking Global, managed by Tiger Cub Andreas Halvorsen, holds the biggest position in Gulfport Energy Corporation. The fund has a $304.9 million position in the stock, comprising 1.3% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Millennium Management, led by Israel Englander, holding a $121.4 million position; 0.2% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other professional money managers that are bullish consist of D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Ryan Heslop and Ariel Warszawski’s Firefly Value Partners and John Griffin’s Blue Ridge Capital.

Because Gulfport Energy Corporation has witnessed bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, we can see that there is a sect of hedgies who were dropping their full holdings heading into Q4. At the top of the heap, Robert Pitts’s Steadfast Capital Management dropped the biggest position of the “upper crust” of funds watched by Insider Monkey, worth an estimated $74.9 million in stock, and Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $24.3 million worth of GPOR shares. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 6 funds heading into Q4.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Gulfport Energy Corporation, but similarly valued. We will take a look at Charles River Laboratories, AGCO Corporation, Gramercy Property Trust Inc, and Elbit Systems Ltd. (USA). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to GPOR’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 18 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $369 million. That figure was $816 million in GPOR’s case. Charles River Laboratories is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Elbit Systems Ltd. (USA) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Gulfport Energy Corporation is more popular among hedge funds. Considering that hedge funds are fond of this stock in relation to its market cap peers, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and potentially include it in your portfolio.