The elite funds run by legendary investors such as David Tepper and Dan Loeb make hundreds of millions of dollars for themselves and their investors by spending enormous resources doing research on small cap stocks that big investment banks don’t follow. Because of their pay structures, they have strong incentives to do the research necessary to beat the market. That’s why we pay close attention to what they think in small cap stocks. In this article, we take a closer look at Anika Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANIK) from the perspective of those elite funds.
Anika Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANIK) was in 14 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the fourth quarter of 2018. ANIK investors should be aware of an increase in hedge fund interest recently. There were 13 hedge funds in our database with ANIK holdings at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that anik isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
In the financial world there are a large number of tools investors have at their disposal to grade stocks. A pair of the most under-the-radar tools are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outperform the broader indices by a solid amount. Insider Monkey’s flagship best performing hedge funds strategy returned 20.7% year to date (through March 12th) and outperformed the market even though it draws its stock picks among small-cap stocks. This strategy also outperformed the market by 32 percentage points since its inception (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
Paul Marshall of Marshall Wace
We’re going to go over the key hedge fund action encompassing Anika Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANIK).
How are hedge funds trading Anika Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANIK)?
At Q4’s end, a total of 14 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 8% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards ANIK over the last 14 quarters. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
Among these funds, Engaged Capital held the most valuable stake in Anika Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANIK), which was worth $12.6 million at the end of the fourth quarter. On the second spot was Renaissance Technologies which amassed $8.8 million worth of shares. Moreover, Millennium Management, D E Shaw, and Marshall Wace LLP were also bullish on Anika Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANIK), allocating a large percentage of their portfolios to this stock.
As aggregate interest increased, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Marshall Wace LLP, managed by Paul Marshall and Ian Wace, initiated the most outsized position in Anika Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANIK). Marshall Wace LLP had $4.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Gavin Saitowitz and Cisco J. del Valle’s Springbok Capital also initiated a $0.2 million position during the quarter.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Anika Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANIK). These stocks are Hemisphere Media Group Inc (NASDAQ:HMTV), Essendant Inc (NASDAQ:ESND), Retail Value Inc. (NYSE:RVI), and The Hackett Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HCKT). All of these stocks’ market caps are similar to ANIK’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| HMTV | 6 | 42074 | -2 |
| ESND | 8 | 47700 | -4 |
| RVI | 13 | 127706 | -3 |
| HCKT | 10 | 62762 | 0 |
| Average | 9.25 | 70061 | -2.25 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 9.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $70 million. That figure was $54 million in ANIK’s case. Retail Value Inc. (NYSE:RVI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Hemisphere Media Group Inc (NASDAQ:HMTV) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Anika Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANIK) is more popular among hedge funds. Our calculations showed that top 15 most popular stocks) among hedge funds returned 24.2% through April 22nd and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by more than 7 percentage points. Unfortunately ANIK wasn’t nearly as popular as these 15 stock and hedge funds that were betting on ANIK were disappointed as the stock returned -5.3% and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 15 most popular stocks) among hedge funds as 13 of these stocks already outperformed the market this year.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
