Do Hedge Funds Love argenx SE (ARGX)?

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 866 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 argenx SE (NASDAQ:ARGX)?

argenx SE (NASDAQ:ARGX) shareholders have witnessed an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds recently. argenx SE (NASDAQ:ARGX) was in 27 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 34. There were 22 hedge funds in our database with ARGX holdings at the end of December. Our calculations also showed that ARGX isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).

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.

Lei Zhang of Hillhouse Capital Management

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, economists warn of inflation flare up. So, we are checking out this backdoor gold play that has hit peak gains of 718% in a little over a year. We go through lists like the 10 best battery 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. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our homepage. With all of this in mind let’s review the new hedge fund action surrounding argenx SE (NASDAQ:ARGX).

Do Hedge Funds Think ARGX Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At Q1’s end, a total of 27 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 23% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards ARGX over the last 23 quarters. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Among these funds, Baker Bros. Advisors held the most valuable stake in argenx SE (NASDAQ:ARGX), which was worth $308.3 million at the end of the fourth quarter. On the second spot was Avoro Capital Advisors (venBio Select Advisor) which amassed $254.9 million worth of shares. Redmile Group, Lone Pine Capital, and Hillhouse Capital Management 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 Avoro Capital Advisors (venBio Select Advisor) allocated the biggest weight to argenx SE (NASDAQ:ARGX), around 4.4% of its 13F portfolio. Redmile Group is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 3.3 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to ARGX.

As aggregate interest increased, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Point72 Asset Management, managed by Steve Cohen, created the most valuable position in argenx SE (NASDAQ:ARGX). Point72 Asset Management had $13.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Kamran Moghtaderi’s Eversept Partners also made a $9.9 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new ARGX positions are Neil Shahrestani’s Ikarian Capital, D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, and Michael Rockefeller and KarláKroeker’s Woodline Partners.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to argenx SE (NASDAQ:ARGX). We will take a look at Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (NYSE:AEM), DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY), Sociedad Quimica y Minera (NYSE:SQM), Howmet Aerospace Inc. (NYSE:HWM), Elanco Animal Health Incorporated (NYSE:ELAN), Pool Corporation (NASDAQ:POOL), and PulteGroup, Inc. (NYSE:PHM). This group of stocks’ market caps match ARGX’s market cap.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 35.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1335 million. That figure was $1376 million in ARGX’s case. Howmet Aerospace Inc. (NYSE:HWM) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Sociedad Quimica y Minera (NYSE:SQM) is the least popular one with only 16 bullish hedge fund positions. argenx SE (NASDAQ:ARGX) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for ARGX is 49.5. 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 gained 24% in 2021 through July 9th and beat the market by 6.7 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on ARGX, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 13.7% since the end of Q1 (through July 9th) and outperformed the market.

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

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