We at Insider Monkey have gone over 738 13F filings that hedge funds and famous value investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of March 31st. In this article we look at what those investors think of Antares Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:ATRS).
Is Antares Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:ATRS) a bargain? Prominent investors are getting more bullish. The number of long hedge fund positions increased by 2 lately. Our calculations also showed that atrs isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds. ATRS was in 12 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. There were 10 hedge funds in our database with ATRS holdings at the end of the previous quarter.
So, why do we pay attention to hedge fund sentiment before making any investment decisions? Our research has shown that hedge funds’ small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the market by 40 percentage points since May 2014 through May 30, 2019 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that underperformed the market by 10 percentage points annually between 2006 and 2017. Interestingly the margin of underperformance of these stocks has been increasing in recent years. Investors who are long the market and short these stocks would have returned more than 27% annually between 2015 and 2017. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 in our quarterly newsletter. Even if you aren’t comfortable with shorting stocks, you should at least avoid initiating long positions in our short portfolio.
Let’s take a peek at the new hedge fund action surrounding Antares Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:ATRS).
How have hedgies been trading Antares Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:ATRS)?
At Q1’s end, a total of 12 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 20% from the fourth quarter of 2018. On the other hand, there were a total of 6 hedge funds with a bullish position in ATRS a year ago. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
More specifically, Armistice Capital was the largest shareholder of Antares Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:ATRS), with a stake worth $31.2 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing Armistice Capital was Broadfin Capital, which amassed a stake valued at $8 million. Marshall Wace LLP, Renaissance Technologies, and Two Sigma Advisors were also very fond of the stock, giving the stock large weights in their portfolios.
With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, some big names have been driving this bullishness. Renaissance Technologies, managed by Jim Simons, assembled the largest position in Antares Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:ATRS). Renaissance Technologies had $1.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. William Harnisch’s Peconic Partners LLC also made a $0.2 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new ATRS positions are David Harding’s Winton Capital Management and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.
Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Antares Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:ATRS). These stocks are CONSOL Coal Resources LP (NYSE:CCR), SIGA Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:SIGA), CytomX Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTMX), and Prothena Corporation plc (NASDAQ:PRTA). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to ATRS’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| CCR | 5 | 102709 | 0 |
| SIGA | 16 | 30174 | 6 |
| CTMX | 18 | 92527 | 1 |
| PRTA | 22 | 242026 | 9 |
| Average | 15.25 | 116859 | 4 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 15.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $117 million. That figure was $47 million in ATRS’s case. Prothena Corporation plc (NASDAQ:PRTA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand CONSOL Coal Resources LP (NYSE:CCR) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Antares Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:ATRS) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and 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 6.2% in Q2 through June 19th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by nearly 3 percentage points. Unfortunately ATRS wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); ATRS investors were disappointed as the stock returned -0.7% during the same time period 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 13 of these stocks already outperformed the market so far in Q2.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
