Hedge funds and large money managers usually invest with a focus on the long-term horizon and, therefore, short-lived dips or bumps on the charts usually don’t make them change their opinion towards a company. This time it may be different. The coronavirus pandemic destroyed the high correlations among major industries and asset classes. We are now in a stock pickers market where fundamentals of a stock have more effect on the price than the overall direction of the market. As a result we observe sudden and large changes in hedge fund positions depending on the news flow. Let’s take a look at the hedge fund sentiment towards AnaptysBio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANAB) to find out whether there were any major changes in hedge funds’ views.
Is AnaptysBio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANAB) an outstanding investment right now? The best stock pickers were becoming more confident. The number of long hedge fund positions rose by 1 lately. AnaptysBio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANAB) was in 21 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 27. Our calculations also showed that ANAB isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).
At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium prices have more than doubled over the past year, so we go through lists like the 10 best EV stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. Keeping this in mind let’s take a glance at the recent hedge fund action surrounding AnaptysBio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANAB).
David Harding of Winton Capital Management
Do Hedge Funds Think ANAB Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At the end of the third quarter, a total of 21 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 5% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 24 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in ANAB a year ago. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
The largest stake in AnaptysBio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANAB) was held by EcoR1 Capital, which reported holding $204 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Tang Capital Management with a $71.3 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Woodline Partners, Frazier Healthcare Partners, and Great Point Partners. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Tang Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to AnaptysBio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANAB), around 14.8% of its 13F portfolio. EcoR1 Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 7.1 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to ANAB.
As one would reasonably expect, specific money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Eversept Partners, managed by Kamran Moghtaderi, initiated the most valuable position in AnaptysBio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANAB). Eversept Partners had $2.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management also made a $1.2 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new ANAB positions are David Harding’s Winton Capital Management and Matthew L Pinz’s Pinz Capital.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to AnaptysBio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANAB). These stocks are Kelly Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:KELYA), ATN International, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATNI), Zevia PBC (NYSE:ZVIA), First Mid Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:FMBH), Transportadora de Gas del Sur SA (NYSE:TGS), Vinci Partners Investments Ltd. (NASDAQ:VINP), and Perdoceo Education Corporation (NASDAQ:PRDO). All of these stocks’ market caps are similar to ANAB’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| KELYA | 12 | 15276 | 3 |
| ATNI | 9 | 41408 | 1 |
| ZVIA | 9 | 18695 | 9 |
| FMBH | 3 | 1142 | 0 |
| TGS | 8 | 11241 | 0 |
| VINP | 7 | 69662 | -3 |
| PRDO | 19 | 89212 | 1 |
| Average | 9.6 | 35234 | 1.6 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 9.6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $35 million. That figure was $421 million in ANAB’s case. Perdoceo Education Corporation (NASDAQ:PRDO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand First Mid Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:FMBH) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks AnaptysBio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANAB) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for ANAB is 79.3. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks returned 29.6% in 2021 and managed to beat the market by 3.6 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on ANAB as the stock returned 28.1% since the end of September (through 12/31) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were clearly right about piling into this stock relative to other stocks with similar market capitalizations.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
