Stocks, especially the once high flying technology stocks, had a lousy start to the new year. QQQ lost 9% of its value in January. We aren’t certain about the bubbly technology stocks that trade for ridiculously high multiples of their revenues, but we believe top hedge fund stocks will deliver positive returns for the rest of the year. In this article, we will take a closer look at hedge fund sentiment towards Maravai LifeSciences Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRVI) at the end of the third quarter and determine whether the smart money was really smart about this stock.
Maravai LifeSciences Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRVI) investors should pay attention to an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds in recent months. Maravai LifeSciences Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRVI) was in 34 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 34. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. There were 20 hedge funds in our database with MRVI positions at the end of the second quarter. Our calculations also showed that MRVI isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).
Daniel Sundheim of D1 Capital
At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium prices have more than doubled over the past year, so we go through lists like the 10 best EV stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. Keeping this in mind let’s take a glance at the recent hedge fund action regarding Maravai LifeSciences Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRVI).
Do Hedge Funds Think MRVI Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At the end of September, a total of 34 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 70% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 0 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in MRVI 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.
The largest stake in Maravai LifeSciences Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRVI) was held by Select Equity Group, which reported holding $594.9 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Marshall Wace LLP with a $73 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Citadel Investment Group, D1 Capital Partners, and Renaissance Technologies. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Select Equity Group allocated the biggest weight to Maravai LifeSciences Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRVI), around 2% of its 13F portfolio. Pinz Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 1.86 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to MRVI.
As aggregate interest increased, specific money managers have jumped into Maravai LifeSciences Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRVI) headfirst. CaaS Capital, managed by Frank Fu, created the largest position in Maravai LifeSciences Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRVI). CaaS Capital had $25.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group also made a $21.6 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, Steven Boyd’s Armistice Capital, and McKinley Capital Management.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Maravai LifeSciences Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRVI) but similarly valued. These stocks are Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste (NYSE:ASR), Paysafe Limited (NYSE:PSFE), Luminar Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:LAZR), Goosehead Insurance, Inc. (NASDAQ:GSHD), Pacific Biosciences of California (NASDAQ:PACB), Dingdong (Cayman) Limited (NYSE:DDL), and AbCellera Biologics Inc. (NASDAQ:ABCL). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to MRVI’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| ASR | 2 | 23593 | -3 |
| PSFE | 42 | 597243 | -8 |
| LAZR | 12 | 111108 | -9 |
| GSHD | 13 | 210178 | -1 |
| PACB | 27 | 1341476 | -1 |
| DDL | 5 | 191421 | 5 |
| ABCL | 21 | 660359 | 3 |
| Average | 17.4 | 447911 | -2 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 17.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $448 million. That figure was $1068 million in MRVI’s case. Paysafe Limited (NYSE:PSFE) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste (NYSE:ASR) is the least popular one with only 2 bullish hedge fund positions. Maravai LifeSciences Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRVI) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for MRVI is 80. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 29.6% in 2021 and beat the market again by 3.6 percentage points. Unfortunately, MRVI wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on MRVI were disappointed as the stock returned -41.1% since the end of September (through 1/31) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as all of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.
Follow Maravai Lifesciences Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MRVI)
Follow Maravai Lifesciences Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MRVI)
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
