The financial regulations require hedge funds and wealthy investors that exceeded the $100 million equity holdings threshold to file a report that shows their positions at the end of every quarter. Even though it isn’t the intention, these filings to a certain extent level the playing field for ordinary investors. The latest round of 13F filings disclosed the funds’ positions on March 31st, about a week after the S&P 500 Index bottomed. We at Insider Monkey have made an extensive database of more than 821 of those established hedge funds and famous value investors’ filings. In this article, we analyze how these elite funds and prominent investors traded Marrone Bio Innovations Inc (NASDAQ:MBII) based on those filings.
Marrone Bio Innovations Inc (NASDAQ:MBII) was in 3 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2020. MBII has experienced an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds lately. There were 2 hedge funds in our database with MBII holdings at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that MBII isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).
Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
According to most investors, hedge funds are perceived as unimportant, outdated financial vehicles of yesteryear. While there are over 8000 funds with their doors open at present, Our experts choose to focus on the moguls of this club, about 850 funds. These investment experts administer the lion’s share of the smart money’s total asset base, and by keeping track of their highest performing stock picks, Insider Monkey has revealed a number of investment strategies that have historically outperformed the market. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy surpassed the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points per annum since its inception in March 2017. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 36% since February 2017 (through May 18th) even though the market was up 30% during the same period. We just shared a list of 8 short targets in our latest quarterly update .
Philip Hempleman of Ardsley Partners
At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, legendary investor Bill Miller told investors to sell 7 extremely popular recession stocks last month. So, we went through his list and recommended another stock with 100% upside potential instead. We interview hedge fund managers and ask them about their best ideas. If you want to find out the best healthcare stock to buy right now, you can watch our latest hedge fund manager interview here. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. Our best call in 2020 was shorting the market when S&P 500 was trading at 3150 after realizing the coronavirus pandemic’s significance before most investors. With all of this in mind let’s go over the latest hedge fund action surrounding Marrone Bio Innovations Inc (NASDAQ:MBII).
What have hedge funds been doing with Marrone Bio Innovations Inc (NASDAQ:MBII)?
At Q1’s end, a total of 3 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 50% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 3 hedge funds with a bullish position in MBII a year ago. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).
Among these funds, Ardsley Partners held the most valuable stake in Marrone Bio Innovations Inc (NASDAQ:MBII), which was worth $10 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Citadel Investment Group which amassed $0 million worth of shares. Millennium Management was also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Ardsley Partners allocated the biggest weight to Marrone Bio Innovations Inc (NASDAQ:MBII), around 3.9% of its 13F portfolio. Millennium Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to MBII.
Consequently, some big names have been driving this bullishness. Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, assembled the largest position in Marrone Bio Innovations Inc (NASDAQ:MBII). Citadel Investment Group had $0 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Marrone Bio Innovations Inc (NASDAQ:MBII) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Vericity, Inc. (NASDAQ:VERY), Matinas Biopharma Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:MTNB), Thompson Creek Metals Company Inc (NYSE:TC), and First Community Corporation (NASDAQ:FCCO). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to MBII’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| VERY | 1 | 688 | 0 |
| MTNB | 8 | 10819 | 1 |
| TC | 1 | 33 | 0 |
| FCCO | 5 | 8309 | -1 |
| Average | 3.75 | 4962 | 0 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 3.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $5 million. That figure was $10 million in MBII’s case. Matinas Biopharma Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:MTNB) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Vericity, Inc. (NASDAQ:VERY) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Marrone Bio Innovations Inc (NASDAQ:MBII) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our calculations showed that top 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.4% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10.1 percentage points. These stocks gained 7.9% in 2020 through May 22nd and still beat the market by 15.6 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on MBII as the stock returned 32.9% during the second quarter and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
