After several tireless days we have finished crunching the numbers from nearly 900 13F filings issued by the elite hedge funds and other investment firms that we track at Insider Monkey, which disclosed those firms’ equity portfolios as of March 31st. The results of that effort will be put on display in this article, as we share valuable insight into the smart money sentiment towards iBio, Inc. (NYSE:IBIO).
Is IBIO stock a buy? iBio, Inc. (NYSE:IBIO) investors should be aware of an increase in hedge fund interest of late. iBio, Inc. (NYSE:IBIO) was in 4 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 3. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. Our calculations also showed that IBIO isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).
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Israel Englander of Millennium Management
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Do Hedge Funds Think IBIO Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At the end of March, a total of 4 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 33% from the fourth quarter of 2020. On the other hand, there were a total of 3 hedge funds with a bullish position in IBIO a year ago. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, holds the largest position in iBio, Inc. (NYSE:IBIO). Citadel Investment Group has a $0.3 million call position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Millennium Management, managed by Israel Englander, which holds a $0.3 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining hedge funds and institutional investors with similar optimism consist of Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and Greg Eisner’s Engineers Gate Manager. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Engineers Gate Manager allocated the biggest weight to iBio, Inc. (NYSE:IBIO), around 0.0008% of its 13F portfolio. AQR Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.0003 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to IBIO.
As industrywide interest jumped, some big names were breaking ground themselves. Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, established the most valuable position in iBio, Inc. (NYSE:IBIO). Citadel Investment Group had $0.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Greg Eisner’s Engineers Gate Manager also initiated a $0 million position during the quarter.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as iBio, Inc. (NYSE:IBIO) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Laird Superfood, Inc. (NYSE:LSF), Codiak BioSciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:CDAK), Apyx Medical Corporation (NASDAQ:APYX), Paratek Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:PRTK), Ampio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMPE), Fiesta Restaurant Group Inc (NASDAQ:FRGI), and Fortress Biotech Inc (NASDAQ:FBIO). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to IBIO’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| LSF | 4 | 17686 | -2 |
| CDAK | 8 | 10929 | -1 |
| APYX | 8 | 51356 | 2 |
| PRTK | 9 | 29709 | -4 |
| AMPE | 9 | 5236 | 4 |
| FRGI | 12 | 126443 | 1 |
| FBIO | 6 | 45814 | -1 |
| Average | 8 | 41025 | -0.1 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 8 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $41 million. That figure was $1 million in IBIO’s case. Fiesta Restaurant Group Inc (NASDAQ:FRGI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Laird Superfood, Inc. (NYSE:LSF) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks iBio, Inc. (NYSE:IBIO) is even less popular than LSF. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for IBIO is 36. 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. Hedge funds dodged a bullet by taking a bearish stance towards IBIO. Our calculations showed that the top 10 most popular hedge fund stocks returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 17.2% in 2021 through June 11th but managed to beat the market again by 3.3 percentage points. Unfortunately IBIO wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was very bearish); IBIO investors were disappointed as the stock returned 5.8% since the end of the first quarter (through 6/11) 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 most of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.
Follow Ibio Inc. (NYSEMKT:IBIO)
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
