Is Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc – Ordinary Shares (NASDAQ:JAZZ) a healthy stock for your portfolio? The best stock pickers are buying. The number of bullish hedge fund positions went up by 3 lately.
If you’d ask most market participants, hedge funds are perceived as slow, old investment vehicles of the past. While there are more than 8000 funds trading at the moment, we at Insider Monkey choose to focus on the elite of this group, close to 450 funds. It is estimated that this group has its hands on the majority of the smart money’s total capital, and by watching their best picks, we have determined a number of investment strategies that have historically outpaced the market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points annually for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve began to sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have beaten the S&P 500 index by 24 percentage points in 7 months (check out a sample of our picks).
Equally as important, optimistic insider trading sentiment is a second way to break down the world of equities. Obviously, there are plenty of reasons for an executive to sell shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would buy. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this tactic if “monkeys” know what to do (learn more here).
With these “truths” under our belt, let’s take a look at the latest action encompassing Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc – Ordinary Shares (NASDAQ:JAZZ).
How are hedge funds trading Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc – Ordinary Shares (NASDAQ:JAZZ)?
At the end of the fourth quarter, a total of 21 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of 17% from the previous quarter. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings considerably.
When looking at the hedgies we track, Adage Capital Management, managed by Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson, holds the largest position in Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc – Ordinary Shares (NASDAQ:JAZZ). Adage Capital Management has a $67.4 million position in the stock, comprising 0.2% of its 13F portfolio. On Adage Capital Management’s heels is Healthcor Management LP, managed by Arthur B Cohen and Joseph Healey, which held a $58.6 million position; 3.2% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining hedge funds that hold long positions include John Paulson’s Paulson & Co, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies and Donald Chiboucis’s Columbus Circle Investors.
Consequently, key money managers were breaking ground themselves. Visium Asset Management, managed by Jacob Gottlieb, assembled the biggest position in Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc – Ordinary Shares (NASDAQ:JAZZ). Visium Asset Management had 20.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Charles Clough’s Clough Capital Partners also made a $13.9 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new JAZZ investors: Mark Kingdon’s Kingdon Capital, Curtis Schenker and Craig Effron’s Scoggin, and James Dondero’s Highland Capital Management.
How are insiders trading Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc – Ordinary Shares (NASDAQ:JAZZ)?
Bullish insider trading is at its handiest when the company in focus has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest 180-day time period, Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc – Ordinary Shares (NASDAQ:JAZZ) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and 6 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
Let’s also review hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc – Ordinary Shares (NASDAQ:JAZZ). These stocks are Theravance Inc (NASDAQ:THRX), Seattle Genetics, Inc. (NASDAQ:SGEN), Medivation Inc (NASDAQ:MDVN), Incyte Corporation (NASDAQ:INCY), and Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARIA). All of these stocks are in the biotechnology industry and their market caps are similar to JAZZ’s market cap.
