Is Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HALO) a good investment?
Now, according to many investors, hedge funds are seen as delayed, outdated financial tools of an era lost to time. Although there are more than 8,000 hedge funds trading in present day, Insider Monkey aim at the leaders of this group, around 525 funds. It is assumed that this group has its hands on the majority of the smart money’s total assets, and by watching their highest quality investments, we’ve identified a few investment strategies that have historically outpaced the broader indices. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points annually for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve started sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have trumped the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (explore the details and some picks here).
Equally as useful, positive insider trading activity is a second way to analyze the stock market universe. Just as you’d expect, there are a number of stimuli for a corporate insider to get rid of shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would initiate a purchase. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this strategy if shareholders know where to look (learn more here).
Furthermore, we’re going to discuss the latest info for Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HALO).
How are hedge funds trading Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HALO)?
In preparation for the third quarter, a total of 11 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -27% from one quarter earlier. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings significantly.
Out of the hedge funds we follow, Baker Bros. Advisors, managed by Julian Baker and Felix Baker, holds the largest position in Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HALO). Baker Bros. Advisors has a $52.1 million position in the stock, comprising 1% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is QVT Financial, managed by Daniel Gold, which held a $36.6 million position; 2.5% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other hedgies that are bullish include Jerome Pfund and Michael Sjostrom’s Sectoral Asset Management, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and Mark Kingdon’s Kingdon Capital.
Judging by the fact that Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HALO) has faced dropping sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s easy to see that there exists a select few hedgies who were dropping their positions entirely at the end of the second quarter. Interestingly, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies dropped the largest position of all the hedgies we track, totaling close to $1.8 million in stock, and Thomas Bailard of Bailard Inc was right behind this move, as the fund cut about $0.7 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 4 funds at the end of the second quarter.
How are insiders trading Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HALO)?
Bullish insider trading is particularly usable when the company in focus has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last half-year time period, Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HALO) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
We’ll check out the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HALO). These stocks are InterMune Inc (NASDAQ:ITMN), Merrimack Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:MACK), TESARO Inc (NASDAQ:TSRO), ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:ACAD), and EXACT Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS). This group of stocks belong to the biotechnology industry and their market caps are similar to HALO’s market cap.