Retail stock traders have taken center stage this year, embracing speculative bets that institutional investors have shunned. How does this trend affect ocean shipping equities? One indicator is stocks owned by customers of the highly popular Robinhood platform.

Robinhood discloses how many of its users own each stock at any given time. This data is downloaded daily and measured over time by Robintrack.net. FreightWaves sifted through the Robintrack database and the Robinhood disclosures and picked out the leading shipping equities.

The result is a very, very different Top 10 list than you'd get from institutional investors.

#10 — Scorpio Tankers

The Robinhood lineup starts out on normal footing with Scorpio Tankers Inc. (NYSE: STNG).

Scorpio is the largest public product-tanker owner. It attracts significant institutional investor interest and garners "buy" recommendations from several sell-side analysts.

Scorpio Tankers stock was owned by 5,849 Robinhood users as of Monday. (The data does not show the total number of shares owned, just the number of owners.)

(All charts courtesy of Robintrack.net)

Robinhood buyers piled into these shares starting in the second half of April.

Back then, talk of floating storage upside was rampant. The pitch was that plunging oil prices would force buyers to store oil on ships, filling up vessel capacity, because production could not be switched off fast enough to keep up with coronavirus-induced demand destruction.

WTI crude went negative for the first time ever on April 20. On April 24, Nordic American Tanker Ltd (NYSE: NAT) CEO Herbjorn Hansson appeared on Jim Cramer's CNBC show "Mad Money."

Late April was the peak for many shipping stocks, with pricing and volume pulling back thereafter.

But the Robintrack data shows Robinhood users continued to increase their exposure to Scorpio Tankers until late May. They've held steady since — despite the fact that Scorpio's stock price has lost half its value since late April.

#9 — Euronav

Euronav NV (NYSE: EURN) is the largest listed crude-tanker owner, with a market cap of $2 billion and a strong following among analysts and institutional investors. As with Scorpio Tankers, there's no surprise Euronav is on the list. The surprise is that it's ranked only ninth.

As with Scorpio, ownership didn't really jump until the last week of April. The number of Robinhood owners of Euronav stock increased through late June. As of Monday, 5,903 Robinhood users owned Euronav stock.

Daily trading volume in Euronav shares is down and the stock price has fallen 30% since late April. Yet the number of Robinhood owners remains near peak levels.

#8 — GasLog Ltd.

GasLog Ltd. (NYSE: GLOG) is one of the world's largest owners of liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers. The company, founded by shipping magnate Peter Livanos, has a market cap of $250 million.

LNG shipping has been hard-hit by the coronavirus effect on oil pricing. Lower oil pricing cuts production of both oil and gas, while gas-price weakness can erase arbitrage-induced transport opportunities. GasLog's share price began its slide in mid-January and hasn't recovered. It's down two-thirds since then.

Robinhood users owning GasLog tripled in a single day: April 20, the day WTI went negative — which was actually a bearish development for GasLog.

The number of Robinhood users who own GasLog has stayed near its peak. As of Monday, 6,825 Robinhood users owned GasLog stock.

#7 — DHT

DHT Holdings Inc (NYSE: DHT) is a pure-play on the very large crude carriers (VLCCs, tankers that carry 2 million barrels of crude oil). It is well regarded by analysts, has an $826 million market cap and has time charters in place to hedge against falling spot rates as floating storage deals unwind.

The Robinhood ownership pattern for DHT is familiar. Traders came in toward the end of April and ownership has remained high since peaking in late May. There were 11,621 Robinhood owners of DHT stock as of Monday, despite the fact that DHT shares have shed a third of their value since late April.

#6 — Frontline

Tanker owner Frontline Ltd (NYSE: FRO), founded by shipping magnate John Fredriksen, has long been a darling of retail and institutional investors alike. Frontline has a market cap of $1.5 billion and a reputation for generous dividends.

Here again, Robinhood users piled in toward the end of April. In this case, the number of owners continued to increase through early July, even as the price of Frontline shares has fallen 28% since late April. There were 11,919 Robinhood owners of Frontline stock on Monday.

In general, entries six-10 are the kind of companies owned by larger institutional funds. The difference is that larger funds got into these stocks earlier and pulled back, whereas Robinhood users came in later, kept buying as stocks fell and are still holding.

Jon Chappell, analyst at Evercore ISI, previously speculated that "just as rates were skyrocketing and retail was getting involved, institutions began fading the rally."

#5 — Globus Maritime

The Top 5 takes a sharp swerve toward micro-cap retail territory. In a topsy-turvy twist, the penny stocks outrank the industry giants.

Dry bulk company Globus Maritime Ltd (NASDAQ: GLBS) takes the fifth slot. On Monday, its stock was trading at 15 cents. Its market cap was around $27 million. A total of 15,863 Robinhood users owned the stock — 2.7 times more users than own stock in shipping giant Euronav.

Data from Robintrack shows that Robinhood ownership in Globus spiked beginning June 18 and has kept rising.

On June 18, Globus announced the pricing of a registered direct offering (RDO) to a group of institutional investors. New York's Maxim Group was the placement agent. Two more RDOs followed.

Last Thursday, the funds buying equity in the RDOs filed to sell shares obtained through warrant exercises. Funds named included Empery, Hudson Bay, Intracoastal, L1 Capital, Sabby, Anson, Alto, Bigger Capital, CVI, Ionic Ventures and Lind Global.

The funds disclosed that they had purchased 129.2 million shares and continued to own 54.7 million, meaning they had resold 74.5 million shares between June 18 and last Thursday.

The Robintrack chart data reveals where many of those shares ended up — in the accounts of Robinhood users. Between June 17 and Monday, the price of Globus shares has fallen by a third.

#4 — Castor Maritime

Like Globus, Castor Maritime Inc (NASDAQ: CTRM) is a small, Greek-owned dry bulk owner. It also has a tiny market cap — $26 million — and an unusually big footprint on Robinhood: 16,941 users owned the stock as of Monday.

Like Globus, Robinhood users' ownership of Castor spiked on a single day, in this case, June 24.

After market close on June 23, Castor announced pricing of an RDO, with Maxim Group as placement manager. Castor did a second RDO this month. Securities filings show that funds owning Castor shares include Empery, L1, CVI and Intracoastal.

#3 — Nordic American Tankers

Nordic American Tankers has always been highly popular with retail investors, less so with institutional buyers. Its shares have outperformed other tanker stocks.

Its trading volume surged in late April to levels far beyond those of any other listed shipping company, following its CEO's appearance on "Mad Money."

NAT is the only company in the Robinhood shipping Top 5 that is listed on NYSE and has a market cap in the nine figures: $642 million. Its shares were owned by 34,391 Robinhood users on Monday.

The Robintrack data shows ownership surging in late April, as was the case with the larger-cap tanker equities. However, the number of users owning NAT is now down 29% from 48,687 on May 4.

#2 — Seanergy

Seanergy Maritime Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: SHIP) is yet another Greek-owned dry bulk company with a very small market cap: $26 million.

Robintrack data shows a steady rise of Robinhood user ownership starting March 31, building through April, then spiking in the first half of May, before peaking at 95,146 users on May 28, just prior to the company's reverse split. Since the reverse split, the number of users has fallen sharply, to 53,771 as of Monday.

On March 31, Seanergy priced the first in a series of common stock and warrants offerings handled by Maxim. It did four more sales through May, coinciding with the period in which Robinhood user ownership of the stock escalated.

On May 8, after the completion of the offerings, the funds that bought the shares from Seanergy filed to resell shares they would obtain from exercising warrants. The selling funds were Empery, Hudson Bay, Intracoastal, L1 and Sabby.

These funds disclosed that they acquired 187.1 million shares in the offerings and continued to own 39.3 million shares, meaning they had resold 147.8 million shares in a short period of time — the same period when Seanergy catapulted to second place on the Robinhood list.

#1 — Top Ships

And the winner is … product-tanker owner TOP SHIPS Inc (NASDAQ: TOPS).

The tanker owner has raised more money this year from equity sales than any other listed shipping company. It grossed $5 million in an at-the-market offering handled by Maxim in February. Then, on March 31, it launched a series of RDOs with Maxim as placement agent. It did a total of 11 RDOs through this month, raising further gross proceeds of $119.7 million.

There are no securities filings yet that confirm who initially bought the RDO shares. However, there were some familiar names in securities filing in November, which listed ownership stakes at that time held by Anson, CVI, Hudson Bay, Intercoastal, KBB and Sabby.

The Robintrack data shows that Top Ships' stock was not popular with Robinhood users until the very end of March — exactly when the RDO series began.

It also shows a sharp spike in the first two weeks of June. As it turns out, Top Ships' RDOs were done in relatively small sizes — the mid-nine digits — until the first half of June. The offering size jumped to $20 million on June 7 and $15 million on June 10.

On March 27, before the RDO series began, there were 16,969 Robinhood users who owned Top Ships stock, according to Robintrack. On that day, the stock was trading at 23 cents.

There are now 208,285 Robinhood users who own Top Ships stock — 12 times more than in late March and more than all nine of the other shipping stocks on the list combined.Top Ships is the 37^th most popular stock in terms of number of users on the entire Robinhood site. Trading at just 10 cents a share, it is more popular than Starbucks, Pfizer, ExxonMobil, GM and Sony. Click for more FreightWaves/American Shipper articles by Greg Miller 

MORE ON SHIPPING STOCKS: Shipowners with shares worth pennies rake in millions: see story here. A lost decade for shipping shares: see story here. "Robinhood effect" spread unevenly across tanker stocks: see story here.

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