5 Best Debt Free Penny Stocks To Buy Now

4. Forte Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:FBRX)

Number of Hedge Fund Shareholders: 6

Value of Hedge Funds’ FBRX Holdings: $7.75 million

Like Quince Therapeutics in the first half of this article, Forte Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:FBRX) represents another cautionary tale about investing in early-stage biotech companies. FBRX shares traded for more than $260 at their peak in May 2017, but have crashed to less than $0.50 in the six-and-a-half years since. Much of that damage was inflicted between May to September 2019, when they fell from $150 to $11.

Six hedge funds were long Forte Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:FBRX) on September 30, down from a peak of 19 in the first quarter of 2021.Of interest is that several funds built much larger positions in FBRX during Q3 than what any fund owned as of June 30. Eashwar Krishnan’s Tybourne Capital Management and Joseph Edelman’s Perceptive Advisors were among the funds that added millions worth of FBRX shares to their 13F portfolios during Q3.

Forte Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:FBRX) shares have traded at a steep discount to the company’s cash position alone in recent years, which prompted several notable shareholders to push for changes on the company’s board. Forte defeated those challengers in part by conducting a dilutive equity capital raise that put more cheap shares into the hands of board backers, a move that was criticized by investment firm Camac Partners as being unjustifiable from a business standpoint. Forte hopes to launch a human clinical trial of its lead product candidate FB-102 early next year.