It was a rough fourth quarter for many hedge funds, which were naturally unable to overcome the big dip in the broad market, as the S&P 500 fell by about 4.8% during 2018 and average hedge fund losing about 1%. The Russell 2000, composed of smaller companies, performed even worse, trailing the S&P by more than 6 percentage points, as investors fled less-known quantities for safe havens. Luckily hedge funds were shifting their holdings into large-cap stocks. The 20 most popular hedge fund stocks actually generated an average return of 18.7% so far in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF by 6.6 percentage points. We are done processing the latest 13f filings and in this article we will study how hedge fund sentiment towards ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE) changed during the first quarter.

Is ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE) a splendid stock to buy now? Investors who are in the know are in a bearish mood. The number of long hedge fund bets went down by 12 recently. Our calculations also showed that OKE isn't among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds. OKE was in 14 hedge funds' portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2019. There were 26 hedge funds in our database with OKE positions at the end of the previous quarter.

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James Dondero of Highland Capital Management[/caption]

Let's review the recent hedge fund action regarding ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE).

Hedge fund activity in ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE)

At the end of the first quarter, a total of 14 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -46% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards OKE over the last 15 quarters. With hedge funds' capital changing hands, there exists an "upper tier" of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

More specifically, Zimmer Partners was the largest shareholder of ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE), with a stake worth $205.7 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing Zimmer Partners was Deep Basin Capital, which amassed a stake valued at $23.2 million. GAMCO Investors, Citadel Investment Group, and D E Shaw were also very fond of the stock, giving the stock large weights in their portfolios.