Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Agenus Inc (AGEN)

You probably know from experience that there is not as much information on small-cap companies as there is on large companies. Of course, this makes it really hard and difficult for individual investors to make proper and accurate analysis of certain small-cap companies. However, well-known and successful hedge fund investors like Carl Icahn and George Soros hold the necessary resources and abilities to conduct an extensive stock analysis on small-cap stocks, which enable them to make millions of dollars by identifying potential winners within the small-cap galaxy of stocks. This represents the main reason why Insider Monkey takes notice of the hedge fund activity in these overlooked stocks.

Agenus Inc (NASDAQ:AGEN) investors should be aware of an increase in support from the world’s most successful money managers in recent months. There were 11 hedge funds in our database with AGEN holdings at the end of the second quarter. The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as Lakeland Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:LBAI), Newpark Resources Inc (NYSE:NR), and HomeStreet Inc (NASDAQ:HMST) to gather more data points.

We follow over 700 hedge funds and other institutional investors and by analyzing their quarterly 13F filings, we identify stocks that they are collectively bullish on and develop investment strategies based on this data. One strategy that outperformed the market over the last year involves selecting the 100 best-performing funds and identifying the 30 mid-cap stocks that they are collectively most bullish on. Over the past year, this strategy generated returns of 18%, topping the 8% gain registered by S&P 500 ETFs. We launched this strategy 2.5 years ago and it returned more than 39% since then, vs. 22% gain registered by the S&P 500 ETFs.

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Now, let’s review the fresh action surrounding Agenus Inc (NASDAQ:AGEN).

How have hedgies been trading Agenus Inc (NASDAQ:AGEN)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 12 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, an increase of 9% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards AGEN over the last 5 quarters. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Behzad Aghazadeh’s venBio Select Advisor has the most valuable position in Agenus Inc (NASDAQ:AGEN), worth close to $26.7 million, comprising 4.7% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is QVT Financial, led by Daniel Gold, holding a $23.1 million position; the fund has 0.9% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other professional money managers that are bullish comprise Millennium Management, one of the 10 largest hedge funds in the world, Bihua Chen’s Cormorant Asset Management and Joseph Edelman’s Perceptive Advisors. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.

As industrywide interest jumped, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Perceptive Advisors, led by Joseph Edelman, initiated the largest position in Agenus Inc (NASDAQ:AGEN). The fund reportedly had $6.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. David E. Shaw’s D E Shaw also initiated a $1.9 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new AGEN investors: Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Behzad Aghazadeh’s venBio Select Advisor, and Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Agenus Inc (NASDAQ:AGEN) but similarly valued. These stocks are Lakeland Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:LBAI), Newpark Resources Inc (NYSE:NR), HomeStreet Inc (NASDAQ:HMST), and Sapiens International Corporation N.V. (NASDAQ:SPNS). This group of stocks’ market values resemble AGEN’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 9 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $22 million. That figure was $96 million in AGEN’s case. Newpark Resources Inc (NYSE:NR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Sapiens International Corporation N.V. (NASDAQ:SPNS) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Agenus Inc (NASDAQ:AGEN) 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. In this regard NR might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: none.