SandRidge Energy & Atlas Energy: Leon Cooperman's Take On Two Of His Largest Holdings

Shares of both SandRidge Energy Inc. SD & Atlas Energy LP ATLS skyrocketed from the time they opened for trade today. Currently, SandRidge Energy is trading at $1.91, up 11.70%, while Atlas Energy is trading at $28.60, up 12.55%.

One of the main beneficiary of today’s gain in both these stocks has to be Leon Cooperman, who through his firm Omega Advisors, Inc. owns over 45 million shares of SandRidge and over 4 million shares of Atlas Energy. (As of 9/30/2014)

Cooperman was recently on CNBC to discuss his firm’s holding in both these stocks and in energy sector overall.

“I look at Atlas totally differently than SandRidge” Cooperman said. “If present prices persisted for several years, SandRidge’s survival would be an issue. So, I have not added to it, its become a smaller part of my portfolio because of the big price decline, but we still own it. Atlas, we have been adding to it, if you check filings, I think, we are up to about 12% of the company and really the deal is out there. It’s kind of interesting, the day the deal was announced, the deal meaning the sale of Atlas to Targa […]”

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“My thought was and I can not give you names yet because I have to look towards the end of the year where the prices are, but I would try to win the contest by picking up a bunch of energy stocks, SandRidge not being one of them, because I think there are real issues there and maybe being short German Bunds, which yield about 58 basis points, which make no sense to me,” Cooperman added.