Artisan Partners, a high value-added investment management firm, published its ‘Artisan Small Cap Fund’ second quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. A return of 4.36% was recorded by its Investor Class: ARTSX, 4.40% by its Advisor Class: APDSX, and 4.41% by its Institutional Class: APHSX for the second quarter of 2021, all above the Russell 2000® Growth Index that delivered a 3.92% return and the Russell 2000® Index that was up by 4.29% for the same period. You can take a look at the fund’s top 5 holdings to have an idea about their top bets for 2021.
In the Q2 2021 investor letter of Artisan Partners, the fund mentioned argenx SE (NASDAQ: ARGX) and discussed its stance on the firm. argenx SE is a Netherlands-based biotechnology company with an $18.01 billion market capitalization. ARGX delivered a 19.21% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are up by 60.61%. The stock closed at $350.58 per share on September 3, 2021.
Here is what Artisan Partners has to say about argenx SE in its Q2 2021 investor letter:
“Argenx is a Dutch biotechnology company developing antibodybased therapies for autoimmune diseases and cancer. Commercial preparations are underway for the company’s FcRn drug efgartigimod, which is used to treat patients with severe autoimmune diseases. Discussions with health insurance payers have been positive, and the manufacturing/supply chain is well-positioned. Argenx appears to be not only first-in-class (a first mover) but also the best-inclass asset in a high value and competitive field of FcRn drugs. First-inclass drugs typically take the majority of market share, and with a best-in-class profile, Argenx could solidify a dominate market position.”
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash
Based on our calculations, argenx SE (NASDAQ: ARGX) was not able to clinch a spot in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. ARGX was in 27 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the first half of 2021. argenx SE (NASDAQ: ARGX) delivered a 29.88% return in the past 3 months.
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 has shown that hedge funds’ small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by 115 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 underperformed the market by 10 percentage points annually between 2006 and 2017. Interestingly the margin of underperformance of these stocks has been increasing in recent years. Investors who are long the market and short these stocks would have returned more than 27% annually between 2015 and 2017. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 in our quarterly newsletter.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
