Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. (FOLD): Hedge Funds Folding Their Hands

The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. We at Insider Monkey have plowed through 821 13F filings that hedge funds and well-known value investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of March 31st, a week after the market trough. In this article we look at what those investors think of Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:FOLD).

Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:FOLD) investors should pay attention to a decrease in hedge fund sentiment of late. FOLD was in 28 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. There were 35 hedge funds in our database with FOLD holdings at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that FOLD isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research was able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 58 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that’ll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 36% through May 18th. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

Oleg Nodelman of EcoR1 Capital

We leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, we believe electric vehicles and energy storage are set to become giant markets, and we want to take advantage of the declining lithium prices amid the COVID-19 pandemic. So we are checking out investment opportunities like these. We interview hedge fund managers and ask them about their best ideas. If you want to find out the best healthcare stock to buy right now, you can watch our latest hedge fund manager interview here. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. Our best call in 2020 was shorting the market when the S&P 500 was trading at 3150 after realizing the coronavirus pandemic’s significance before most investors. With all of this in mind let’s check out the fresh hedge fund action surrounding Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:FOLD).

How have hedgies been trading Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:FOLD)?

At Q1’s end, a total of 28 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -20% from the fourth quarter of 2019. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in FOLD over the last 18 quarters. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

The largest stake in Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:FOLD) was held by Perceptive Advisors, which reported holding $232.7 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Redmile Group with a $232.7 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Avoro Capital Advisors (venBio Select Advisor), Palo Alto Investors, and D E Shaw. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Redmile Group allocated the biggest weight to Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:FOLD), around 6.52% of its 13F portfolio. Perceptive Advisors is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 6.06 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to FOLD.

Seeing as Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:FOLD) has witnessed declining sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s safe to say that there is a sect of hedge funds who were dropping their positions entirely in the first quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Eric Bannasch’s Cadian Capital dumped the biggest stake of the 750 funds tracked by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $13.5 million in stock, and Ken Greenberg and David Kim’s Ghost Tree Capital was right behind this move, as the fund sold off about $12.2 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 7 funds in the first quarter.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:FOLD). We will take a look at Envista Holdings Corporation (NYSE:NVST), Tripadvisor Inc (NASDAQ:TRIP), Tegna Inc (NYSE:TGNA), and Parsley Energy Inc (NYSE:PE). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to FOLD’s market value.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 31.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $395 million. That figure was $842 million in FOLD’s case. Parsley Energy Inc (NYSE:PE) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Envista Holdings Corporation (NYSE:NVST) is the least popular one with only 22 bullish hedge fund positions. Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:FOLD) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our calculations showed that top 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.4% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10.1 percentage points. These stocks gained 8.3% in 2020 through the end of May and still beat the market by 13.2 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on FOLD as the stock returned 35.1% during the second quarter and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.