People watch stocks for different reasons -- they're waiting for a dip in price, watching for a specific catalyst, gathering all the news and information that might affect stocks they already own, or considering a sell. Regardless of their motivation, we can better understand market sentiment by seeing who's watching what. With the Fool's free My Watchlist service, we have tens of thousands of people telling us the businesses that have, for whatever reason, piqued their interest.

With this data we have come up with a new metric, watch interest, to inform investors what stocks their peers keep tabs on in each industry. In the case of the royalty trust industry, watch interest is the percentage of people keeping an eye on royalty trusts in general who are specifically watching each trust. By looking at what stocks people are most interested in an industry, you can get ahead of the curb by finding hot stocks that you might have otherwise overlooked.

The most-watched royalty trust is ...
Looking at the aggregate data, we see that SandRidge Mississippian Trust I (NYSE: SDT) is above the rest in terms of watch interest and for good reason. As CAPS player njmiles03 wrote last week:

(1) Energy.
(2) Small company.
(3) Currently has 37 producing wells, with plans for 123 more. Increasing wells over time translates to increasing cash flow & royalty payouts, and seriously mitigates the possible hit to revenue per well due to potential decline in oil price.

Here are the rest of the top 10 most-watched companies in the industry with their watch interest along with the stocks' CAPS rating to show the sentiment of our investing community.

 

Company

Market Cap (millions)

CAPS Rating

Watch Interest

1

SandRidge Mississippian Trust I $741 ***** 32.6%

2

BP Prudhoe Bay Royalty Trust (NYSE: BPT) $2,494 **** 31.4%

3

Permian Basin Royalty Trust (NYSE: PBT) $1,046 **** 10.2%

4

San Juan Basin Royalty Trust (NYSE: SJT) $1,185 ***** 7.4%

5

Hugoton Royalty Trust (NYSE: HGT) $917 ***** 7.1%

6

Sabine Royalty Trust (NYSE: SBR) $960 ***** 2.9%

7

Dorchester Minerals LP (Nasdaq: DMLP) $850 **** 1.8%

8

Cross Timbers Royalty Trust (NYSE: CRT) $276 ***** 1.6%

9

Dominion Resources Black Warrior Trust (NYSE: DOM) $84 *** 1.5%

10

North European Oil Royalty Trust (NYSE: NRT) $309 ***** 1.4%

Source: Motley Fool, Motley Fool CAPS.

Whether you're keeping an eye on the industry stalwarts like BP Prudhoe Bay Royalty Trust, or monitoring an up-and-comer like Cross Timbers Royalty Trust, it pays to watch. We can help you keep tabs on your companies with My Watchlist, our free, personalized stock tracking service. Click here to start now.