The 700+ hedge funds and famous money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the third quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of September 30. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund portfolios. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards Sienna Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNNA).
Sienna Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNNA) has experienced a decrease in hedge fund interest lately. Our calculations also showed that SNNA isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
In today’s marketplace there are plenty of methods shareholders employ to analyze publicly traded companies. A couple of the most innovative methods are hedge fund and insider trading activity. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best money managers can outpace their index-focused peers by a very impressive amount (see the details here).
John Overdeck of Two Sigma Advisors
Unlike the largest US hedge funds that are convinced Dow will soar past 40,000 or the world’s most bearish hedge fund that’s more convinced than ever that a crash is coming, our long-short investment strategy doesn’t rely on bull or bear markets to deliver double digit returns. We only rely on the best performing hedge funds‘ buy/sell signals. We’re going to take a look at the fresh hedge fund action surrounding Sienna Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNNA).
Hedge fund activity in Sienna Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNNA)
Heading into the fourth quarter of 2019, a total of 3 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -50% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards SNNA over the last 17 quarters. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).
The largest stake in Sienna Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNNA) was held by Millennium Management, which reported holding $0 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Citadel Investment Group with a $0 million position. The only other hedge fund that is bullish on the company was Two Sigma Advisors.
Due to the fact that Sienna Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNNA) has experienced bearish sentiment from the smart money, it’s easy to see that there exists a select few hedge funds who sold off their full holdings last quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Christopher James’s Partner Fund Management said goodbye to the largest investment of all the hedgies monitored by Insider Monkey, valued at close to $2.2 million in stock. Renaissance Technologies also cut its stock, about $0.5 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 3 funds last quarter.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Sienna Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNNA). We will take a look at Destination Maternity Corp (NASDAQ:DEST), Yield10 Bioscience, Inc. (NASDAQ:YTEN), Motif Bio plc (NASDAQ:MTFB), and Trans World Entertainment Corporation (NASDAQ:TWMC). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to SNNA’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| DEST | 3 | 438 | -1 |
| YTEN | 3 | 315 | 0 |
| MTFB | 3 | 48 | 0 |
| TWMC | 1 | 206 | 0 |
| Average | 2.5 | 252 | -0.25 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 2.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $0 million. That figure was $0 million in SNNA’s case. Destination Maternity Corp (NASDAQ:DEST) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Trans World Entertainment Corporation (NASDAQ:TWMC) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Sienna Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNNA) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 34.7% in 2019 through November 22nd and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 8.5 percentage points. Unfortunately SNNA wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on SNNA were disappointed as the stock returned -11% during the fourth quarter (through 11/22) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds as many of these stocks already outperformed the market so far this year.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
