Is it smart to be bullish on EXACT Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS)?
In the financial world, there are a multitude of gauges shareholders can use to analyze Mr. Market. Two of the most innovative are hedge fund and insider trading interest. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the elite fund managers can beat the market by a significant margin (see just how much).
Just as key, bullish insider trading sentiment is another way to analyze the world of equities. There are a variety of stimuli for an insider to sell shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would initiate a purchase. Plenty of empirical studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this tactic if you understand what to do (learn more here).
Keeping this in mind, it’s important to analyze the latest info surrounding EXACT Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS).
What have hedge funds been doing with EXACT Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS)?
At Q2’s end, a total of 10 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of -17% from the first quarter.
Due to the fact EXACT Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) has faced declining interest from the smart money’s best and brightest, we can see that there exists a select few hedgies that decided to sell off their positions entirely heading into Q2. It’s worth mentioning that Mark Broach’s Manatuck Hill Partners cut the biggest investment of the 450+ funds we monitor, comprising close to $9.6 million in stock, and Jacob Gottlieb of Visium Asset Management was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $4.4 million worth. These moves are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest was cut by 2 funds heading into Q2.
What have insiders been doing with EXACT Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS)?
Insider buying is at its handiest when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest half-year time frame, EXACT Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
We’ll go over the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to EXACT Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS). These stocks are Array Biopharma Inc (NASDAQ:ARRY), Cadence Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:CADX), Merrimack Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:MACK), Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HALO), and ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:ACAD). All of these stocks are in the biotechnology industry and their market caps match EXAS’s market cap.
| Company Name | # of Hedge Funds | # of Insiders Buying | # of Insiders Selling |
| Array Biopharma Inc (NASDAQ:ARRY) | 17 | 0 | 0 |
| Cadence Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:CADX) | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| Merrimack Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:MACK) | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HALO) | 11 | 0 | 0 |
| ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:ACAD) | 15 | 0 | 0 |
Using the results demonstrated by our research, average investors should always track hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and EXACT Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) applies perfectly to this mantra.
