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 Audentes Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:BOLD).
Audentes Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:BOLD) has seen a decrease in hedge fund interest recently. BOLD was in 25 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 27 hedge funds in our database with BOLD holdings at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that BOLD isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video below for Q2 rankings).
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
Why do we pay any attention at all to hedge fund sentiment? Our research has shown that hedge funds’ large-cap stock picks indeed failed to beat the market between 1999 and 2016. However, we were able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the Russell 2000 ETFs by 40 percentage points since May 2014 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that’ll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 27.8% through November 21, 2019. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
Samuel Isaly of OrbiMed 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 key hedge fund action encompassing Audentes Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:BOLD).
What does smart money think about Audentes Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:BOLD)?
Heading into the fourth quarter of 2019, a total of 25 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -7% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 17 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in BOLD a year ago. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Redmile Group, managed by Jeremy Green, holds the biggest position in Audentes Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:BOLD). Redmile Group has a $83.2 million position in the stock, comprising 2.8% of its 13F portfolio. On Redmile Group’s heels is Great Point Partners, led by Jeffrey Jay and David Kroin, holding a $69.8 million position; the fund has 6.4% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining hedge funds and institutional investors with similar optimism include Christopher James’s Partner Fund Management, Samuel Isaly’s OrbiMed Advisors and Julian Baker and Felix Baker’s Baker Bros. Advisors. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Great Point Partners allocated the biggest weight to Audentes Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:BOLD), around 6.41% of its portfolio. Foresite Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 3.38 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to BOLD.
Seeing as Audentes Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:BOLD) has experienced declining sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, we can see that there was a specific group of hedgies that slashed their positions entirely by the end of the third quarter. Interestingly, Ori Hershkovitz’s Nexthera Capital cut the largest investment of the 750 funds watched by Insider Monkey, totaling an estimated $11.1 million in stock, and Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $8.5 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest fell by 2 funds by the end of the third quarter.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Audentes Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:BOLD). We will take a look at Sykes Enterprises, Incorporated (NASDAQ:SYKE), Boise Cascade Company (NYSE:BCC), Shutterstock Inc (NYSE:SSTK), and Perficient, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRFT). This group of stocks’ market valuations resemble BOLD’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| SYKE | 13 | 71749 | -2 |
| BCC | 13 | 52582 | 2 |
| SSTK | 15 | 79364 | -3 |
| PRFT | 15 | 63971 | -1 |
| Average | 14 | 66917 | -1 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 14 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $67 million. That figure was $486 million in BOLD’s case. Shutterstock Inc (NYSE:SSTK) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Sykes Enterprises, Incorporated (NASDAQ:SYKE) is the least popular one with only 13 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Audentes Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:BOLD) is more popular among hedge funds. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 37.4% in 2019 through the end of November and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 9.9 percentage points. Unfortunately BOLD wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on BOLD were disappointed as the stock returned 3.3% during the first two months of the fourth quarter 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 70 percent of these stocks already outperformed the market in Q4.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
