Hedge Funds Are Betting On Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (MNTA) – Avanir Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (AVNR), Hi-Tech Pharmacal Co. (HITK)

Is Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:MNTA) an exceptional investment now? Prominent investors are buying. The number of long hedge fund positions improved by 5 in recent months.

If you’d ask most market participants, hedge funds are perceived as underperforming, outdated financial vehicles of the past. While there are greater than 8000 funds trading at present, we choose to focus on the elite of this group, close to 450 funds. It is estimated that this group controls most of the smart money’s total asset base, and by tracking their highest performing equity investments, we have brought to light a number of investment strategies that have historically outstripped the market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outperformed 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 topped the S&P 500 index by 24 percentage points in 7 months (explore the details and some picks here).

Equally as key, bullish insider trading activity is another way to break down the stock market universe. As the old adage goes: there are many stimuli for an upper level exec to cut shares of his or her company, but only one, very simple reason why they would initiate a purchase. Several empirical studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this method if piggybackers know where to look (learn more here).

With all of this in mind, let’s take a look at the recent action regarding Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:MNTA).

Hedge fund activity in Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:MNTA)

In preparation for this year, a total of 12 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 71% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings significantly.

Of the funds we track, Jacob Gottlieb’s Visium Asset Management had the most valuable position in Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:MNTA), worth close to $47.2 million, accounting for 1.6% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Matt Sirovich and Jeremy Mindich of Scopia Capital, with a $44.8 million position; 1.8% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other peers that hold long positions include William Leland Edwards’s Palo Alto Investors, Jerome Pfund and Michael Sjostrom’s Sectoral Asset Management and Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies.

Consequently, key money managers have been driving this bullishness. Visium Asset Management, managed by Jacob Gottlieb, established the largest position in Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:MNTA). Visium Asset Management had 47.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Israel Englander’s Millennium Management also initiated a $1.4 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, Steven Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors, and Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp.

What do corporate executives and insiders think about Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:MNTA)?

Insider purchases made by high-level executives is best served when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the last half-year time period, Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:MNTA) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and 8 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s check out hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:MNTA). These stocks are Akorn, Inc. (NASDAQ:AKRX), Avanir Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVNR), Hi-Tech Pharmacal Co. (NASDAQ:HITK), Sagent Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:SGNT), and Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:LGND). This group of stocks belong to the drugs – generic industry and their market caps match MNTA’s market cap.

With the returns demonstrated by the aforementioned strategies, retail investors should always monitor hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:MNTA) shareholders fit into this picture quite nicely.

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