Here’s What Hedge Funds Think About Y-mAbs Therapeutics, Inc. (YMAB)

The first quarter was a breeze as Powell pivoted, and China seemed eager to reach a deal with Trump. Both the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 delivered very strong gains as a result, with the Russell 2000, which is composed of smaller companies, outperforming the large-cap stocks slightly during the first quarter. Unfortunately sentiment shifted in May and August as this time China pivoted and Trump put more pressure on China by increasing tariffs. Hedge funds’ top 20 stock picks performed spectacularly in this volatile environment. These stocks delivered a total gain of 24.4% through September 30th, vs. a gain of 20.4% for the S&P 500 ETF. In this article we will look at how this market volatility affected the sentiment of hedge funds towards Y-mAbs Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:YMAB), and what that likely means for the prospects of the company and its stock.

Is Y-mAbs Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:YMAB) a safe investment today? Money managers are becoming more confident. The number of long hedge fund bets increased by 3 in recent months. Our calculations also showed that YMAB isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (see the video below). YMAB was in 7 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the second quarter of 2019. There were 4 hedge funds in our database with YMAB holdings at the end of the previous quarter.

Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

If you’d ask most stock holders, hedge funds are viewed as unimportant, old investment tools of yesteryear. While there are greater than 8000 funds trading today, Our experts hone in on the moguls of this group, about 750 funds. These investment experts manage most of the smart money’s total capital, and by paying attention to their finest stock picks, Insider Monkey has figured out various investment strategies that have historically surpassed the S&P 500 index. Insider Monkey’s flagship hedge fund strategy beat the S&P 500 index by around 5 percentage points a year since its inception in May 2014. We were able to generate large returns even by identifying short candidates. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 25.7% since February 2017 (through September 30th) even though the market was up more than 33% during the same period. We just shared a list of 10 short targets in our latest quarterly update .

Unlike former hedge manager, Dr. Steve Sjuggerud, who is convinced Dow will soar past 40000, our long-short investment strategy doesn’t rely on bull markets to deliver double digit returns. We only rely on hedge fund buy/sell signals. We’re going to take a peek at the fresh hedge fund action surrounding Y-mAbs Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:YMAB).

What does smart money think about Y-mAbs Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:YMAB)?

At Q2’s end, a total of 7 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 75% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards YMAB over the last 16 quarters. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Cormorant Asset Management, managed by Bihua Chen, holds the biggest position in Y-mAbs Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:YMAB). Cormorant Asset Management has a $22.9 million position in the stock, comprising 1.3% of its 13F portfolio. On Cormorant Asset Management’s heels is Millennium Management, managed by Israel Englander, which holds a $9.2 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other hedge funds and institutional investors that hold long positions comprise Richard Driehaus’s Driehaus Capital, Julian Baker and Felix Baker’s Baker Bros. Advisors and Renaissance Technologies.

As aggregate interest increased, specific money managers have jumped into Y-mAbs Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:YMAB) headfirst. Driehaus Capital, managed by Richard Driehaus, created the largest position in Y-mAbs Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:YMAB). Driehaus Capital had $4.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Renaissance Technologies also made a $1 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management and Gavin Saitowitz and Cisco J. del Valle’s Springbok Capital.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Y-mAbs Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:YMAB) but similarly valued. These stocks are National Energy Services Reunited Corp. (NASDAQ:NESR), The Providence Service Corporation (NASDAQ:PRSC), Intellia Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTLA), and Arvinas, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARVN). All of these stocks’ market caps are similar to YMAB’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 11.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $92 million. That figure was $41 million in YMAB’s case. The Providence Service Corporation (NASDAQ:PRSC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand National Energy Services Reunited Corp. (NASDAQ:NESR) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Y-mAbs Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:YMAB) is even less popular than NESR. Hedge funds clearly dropped the ball on YMAB as the stock delivered strong returns, though hedge funds’ consensus picks still generated respectable returns. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 24.4% in 2019 through September 30th and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 4 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on YMAB as the stock returned 13.9% during the third quarter and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.