Amneal Pharmaceuticals (AMRX): Hedge Funds Never Been Less Bullish

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. Insider Monkey finished processing 821 13F filings submitted by hedge funds and prominent investors. These filings show these funds’ portfolio positions as of March 31st, 2020. What do these smart investors think about Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE:AMRX)?

Is Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE:AMRX) worth your attention right now? Prominent investors are in a pessimistic mood. The number of long hedge fund bets shrunk by 3 recently. Our calculations also showed that AMRX 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). AMRX was in 7 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. There were 10 hedge funds in our database with AMRX holdings at the end of the previous quarter.

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

According to most market participants, hedge funds are viewed as underperforming, outdated investment tools of years past. While there are more than 8000 funds in operation at the moment, Our researchers choose to focus on the moguls of this club, about 850 funds. It is estimated that this group of investors have their hands on the majority of the smart money’s total capital, and by paying attention to their best stock picks, Insider Monkey has deciphered various investment strategies that have historically outrun the market. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy defeated the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points a year since its inception in March 2017. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 36% since February 2017 (through May 18th) even though the market was up 30% during the same period. We just shared a list of 8 short targets in our latest quarterly update .

Peter Rathjens of Arrowstreet Capital

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, 2020’s unprecedented market conditions provide us with the highest number of trading opportunities in a decade. So we are checking out stocks recommended/scorned by legendary Bill Miller. 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. Keeping this in mind we’re going to go over the recent hedge fund action regarding Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE:AMRX).

How have hedgies been trading Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE:AMRX)?

Heading into the second quarter of 2020, a total of 7 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -30% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 8 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in AMRX a year ago. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were adding to their stakes significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

Among these funds, Citadel Investment Group held the most valuable stake in Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE:AMRX), which was worth $1.2 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Two Sigma Advisors which amassed $1.1 million worth of shares. Springbok Capital, Arrowstreet Capital, and Engineers Gate Manager were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Springbok Capital allocated the biggest weight to Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE:AMRX), around 0.05% of its 13F portfolio. Engineers Gate Manager is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.03 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to AMRX.

Due to the fact that Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE:AMRX) has witnessed a decline in interest from hedge fund managers, logic holds that there was a specific group of hedgies that decided to sell off their full holdings heading into Q4. At the top of the heap, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management said goodbye to the largest position of all the hedgies followed by Insider Monkey, totaling an estimated $8.3 million in stock. Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s fund, Marshall Wace LLP, also said goodbye to its stock, about $2.9 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 3 funds heading into Q4.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE:AMRX) but similarly valued. These stocks are Air Transport Services Group Inc. (NASDAQ:ATSG), Tompkins Financial Corporation (NYSE:TMP), PC Connection, Inc. (NASDAQ:CNXN), and TG Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:TGTX). This group of stocks’ market caps match AMRX’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 15.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $109 million. That figure was $4 million in AMRX’s case. TG Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:TGTX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Tompkins Financial Corporation (NYSE:TMP) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE:AMRX) 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 13.9% in 2020 through June 10th and still beat the market by 14.2 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on AMRX as the stock returned 45.4% during the second quarter and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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