Hedge Funds Are Betting On Horizon Pharma Inc (HZNP)

Is Horizon Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:HZNP) going to take off soon? Money managers are turning bullish. The number of long hedge fund bets improved by 1 recently.

To most investors, hedge funds are seen as slow, old investment tools of years past. While there are over 8000 funds with their doors open at the moment, we at Insider Monkey choose to focus on the crème de la crème of this club, about 450 funds. It is widely believed that this group controls the majority of the hedge fund industry’s total capital, and by keeping an eye on their highest performing stock picks, we have revealed a number of investment strategies that have historically beaten Mr. Market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points a year for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve began to sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have beaten the S&P 500 index by 23.3 percentage points in 8 months (see all of our picks from August).

Equally as important, optimistic insider trading activity is a second way to break down the world of equities. As the old adage goes: there are a number of reasons for a bullish insider to downsize shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would behave bullishly. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this method if piggybackers understand what to do (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, we’re going to take a gander at the recent action surrounding Horizon Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:HZNP).

How are hedge funds trading Horizon Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:HZNP)?

In preparation for this quarter, a total of 8 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 14% from the first quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings meaningfully.

According to our comprehensive database, Andrew Spokes’s Farallon Capital had the largest position in Horizon Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:HZNP), worth close to $6 million, comprising 0.1% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Alyeska Investment Group, managed by Anand Parekh, which held a $2.3 million call position; the fund has 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining peers that are bullish include Mark Kingdon’s Kingdon Capital, Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group and Carl Goldsmith and Scott Klein’s Beach Point Capital Management.

As aggregate interest increased, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Kingdon Capital, managed by Mark Kingdon, created the most valuable position in Horizon Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:HZNP). Kingdon Capital had 2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Noam Gottesman’s GLG Partners also made a $0.1 million investment in the stock during the quarter.

What do corporate executives and insiders think about Horizon Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:HZNP)?

Insider purchases made by high-level executives is particularly usable when the company in focus has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the last six-month time frame, Horizon Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:HZNP) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and 5 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

With the returns exhibited by Insider Monkey’s strategies, retail investors should always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Horizon Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:HZNP) is an important part of this process.

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