As fast as we can type this, Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s hedge fund, Adage Capital Partners, disclosed ownership of about 3.7 million shares of Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONXX), in a 13G filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In this way, in comparison with the position disclosed as at the end of the past quarter, Adage boosted its stake in Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONXX) by as much as 2.25 million shares. At the current price of the company’s shares, the value of the Adage’s stake amounts to slightly above $459.8 million. After purchasing the stock more than a year ago, Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson have been mostly bullish on Onyxx, increasing their position from the initial 350,000 shares. The most recent increase consolidated Adage’s position as the hedge fund with the largest stake.
In today’s marketplace, there are a multitude of indicators investors can use to analyze the equity markets. Two of the most useful are hedge fund and insider trading movement. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite money managers can beat the broader indices by a very impressive amount (see just how much).
Equally as key, optimistic insider trading activity is a second way to look at the marketplace. Obviously, there are many stimuli for an insider to cut shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would buy. Several empirical studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this tactic if you know where to look (learn more here).
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s discuss the recent info surrounding Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONXX).
How are hedge funds trading Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONXX)?
In preparation for the third quarter, a total of 24 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of -17% from the first quarter. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes substantially.
Following Adage, sitting at the No. 2 spot, is Sectoral Asset Management, managed by Jerome Pfund and Michael Sjostrom, which held a $117.7 million position; the fund has 3.5% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other peers that are bullish include William Leland Edwards’s Palo Alto Investors, Samuel Isaly’s OrbiMed Advisors and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.
Judging by the fact that Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONXX) has experienced declining interest from upper-tier hedge fund managers, we can see that there is a sect of fund managers that elected to cut their positions entirely in Q1. At the top of the heap, Sean Cullinan’s Point State Capital dropped the biggest position of all the hedgies we key on, worth close to $31.5 million in stock, and Julian Baker and Felix Baker of Baker Bros. Advisors was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $14.2 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 5 funds in Q1.
What do corporate executives and insiders think about Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONXX)?
Insider buying made by high-level executives is most useful when the company in focus has experienced transactions within the past six months. Over the latest half-year time period, Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONXX) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
We’ll also take a look at the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONXX). These stocks are Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:VRTX), Medivation Inc (NASDAQ:MDVN), Seattle Genetics, Inc. (NASDAQ:SGEN), BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. (NASDAQ:BMRN), and Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN). All of these stocks are in the biotechnology industry and their market caps resemble ONXX’s market cap.
