Is Amgen (AMGN) Stock A Buy or Sell?

The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. We have processed the filings of the more than 887 world-class investment firms that we track and now have access to the collective wisdom contained in these filings, which are based on their December 31st holdings, data that is available nowhere else. Should you consider Amgen, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) for your portfolio? We’ll look to this invaluable collective wisdom for the answer.

Is AMGN stock a buy or sell? Amgen, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) was in 49 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the fourth quarter of 2020. The all time high for this statistic is 73. AMGN has seen an increase in hedge fund sentiment recently. There were 45 hedge funds in our database with AMGN holdings at the end of September. Our calculations also showed that AMGN isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q4 rankings).

Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research was able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 124 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here).

Michael Castor of Sio Capital

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. Recently Oregon became the first state to legalize psychedelic mushrooms which are shown to have promising results in treating depression, addiction, and PTSD in early stage academic studies. So, we are checking out this psychedelic drug stock idea right now. We go through lists like the 10 best biotech stocks to invest in to pick the next stock 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. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our homepage (or at the end of this article).Keeping this in mind let’s view the latest hedge fund action encompassing Amgen, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN).

Do Hedge Funds Think AMGN Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At fourth quarter’s end, a total of 49 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 9% from the third quarter of 2020. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards AMGN over the last 22 quarters. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Among these funds, AQR Capital Management held the most valuable stake in Amgen, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN), which was worth $239.5 million at the end of the fourth quarter. On the second spot was Pzena Investment Management which amassed $118.1 million worth of shares. Adage Capital Management, Woodline Partners, and Citadel Investment Group were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Woodline Partners allocated the biggest weight to Amgen, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN), around 3.05% of its 13F portfolio. Arjuna Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 2.2 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to AMGN.

As industrywide interest jumped, specific money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Woodline Partners, managed by Michael Rockefeller and Karl Kroeker, created the largest position in Amgen, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN). Woodline Partners had $115.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Israel Englander’s Millennium Management also made a $44.5 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, Michael Castor’s Sio Capital, and Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Amgen, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) but similarly valued. We will take a look at BHP Group (NYSE:BBL), HDFC Bank Limited (NYSE:HDB), Charter Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHTR), AstraZeneca plc (NASDAQ:AZN), Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM), Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C), and Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to AMGN’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 56.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $4793 million. That figure was $1040 million in AMGN’s case. Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand BHP Group (NYSE:BBL) is the least popular one with only 18 bullish hedge fund positions. Amgen, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for AMGN is 49.3. 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. Our calculations showed that top 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 81.2% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 26 percentage points. These stocks gained 5.3% in 2021 through March 19th and still beat the market by 0.8 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on AMGN as the stock returned 7.8% since the end of the fourth quarter (through 3/19) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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