A whopping number of 13F filings filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been processed by Insider Monkey so that individual investors can look at the overall hedge fund sentiment towards the stocks included in their watchlists. These freshly-submitted public filings disclose money managers’ equity positions as of the end of the three-month period that ended September 30, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment on Abeona Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:ABEO) .
Is Abeona Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:ABEO) an outstanding investment today? Investors who are in the know are absolutely in a bullish mood. The number of long hedge fund bets swelled by 4 recently. There were 9 hedge funds in our database with ABEO positions at the end of June. The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as Agile Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:AGRX), Hornbeck Offshore Services, Inc. (NYSE:HOS), and Dimension Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:DMTX) to gather more data points.
Follow Abeona Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:ABEO)
Follow Abeona Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:ABEO)
At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.
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With all of this in mind, let’s analyze the recent action encompassing Abeona Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:ABEO).
What have hedge funds been doing with Abeona Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:ABEO)?
Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 13 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 44% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards ABEO over the last 5 quarters. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, George Soros’s Soros Fund Management has the biggest position in Abeona Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:ABEO), worth close to $8.8 million, amounting to 0.2% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Knoll Capital Management, led by Fred Knoll, which holds a $8 million position; 14.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other hedge funds and institutional investors that are bullish include Joseph Edelman’s Perceptive Advisors, Joseph Edelman’s Perceptive Advisors and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management. We should note that Soros Fund Management is among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.
As industrywide interest jumped, key hedge funds were breaking ground themselves. Highbridge Capital Management, led by Glenn Russell Dubin, initiated the largest position in Abeona Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:ABEO). Highbridge Capital Management had $1.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Julian Baker and Felix Baker’s Baker Bros. Advisors also initiated a $0.6 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new ABEO positions are James A. Silverman’s Opaleye Management, Manoneet Singh’s Kavi Asset Management, and Philip Hempleman’s Ardsley Partners.
Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Abeona Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:ABEO) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Agile Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:AGRX), Hornbeck Offshore Services, Inc. (NYSE:HOS), Dimension Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:DMTX), and Paragon Commercial Corp (NASDAQ:PBNC). This group of stocks’ market values resemble ABEO’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| AGRX | 9 | 43289 | 1 |
| HOS | 14 | 78226 | -1 |
| DMTX | 7 | 71354 | -1 |
| PBNC | 4 | 8031 | 0 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 8.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $50 million. That figure was $40 million in ABEO’s case. Hornbeck Offshore Services, Inc. (NYSE:HOS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Paragon Commercial Corp (NASDAQ:PBNC) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Abeona Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:ABEO) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still well above average. Also hedge funds collectively own 19.8% of ABEO’s outstanding shares v. 39.8% for HOS. In this regard HOS might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in. However, since hedge funds are also overweight ABEO, it wouldn’t be a waste of time to do some due diligence on this stock.
