Is IMGN A Good Stock To Buy Now?

The 800+ hedge funds and famous money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the third quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of September 30. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund portfolios. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards ImmunoGen, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMGN).

Is IMGN a good stock to buy now? The best stock pickers were in a bearish mood. The number of bullish hedge fund positions decreased by 2 recently. ImmunoGen, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMGN) was in 18 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 20. Our calculations also showed that IMGN isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

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 monthly stock picks returned 113% since March 2017 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 66 percentage points. Our short strategy outperformed the S&P 500 short ETFs by 20 percentage points annually (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

David Siegel of Two Sigma Advisors

At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 15 best blue chip stocks to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. 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 website. Keeping this in mind we’re going to take a look at the fresh hedge fund action regarding ImmunoGen, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMGN).

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

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 18 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -10% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 11 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in IMGN a year ago. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Among these funds, Redmile Group held the most valuable stake in ImmunoGen, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMGN), which was worth $37.7 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was RA Capital Management which amassed $25.3 million worth of shares. Renaissance Technologies, Millennium Management, and Two Sigma Advisors 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 Redmile Group allocated the biggest weight to ImmunoGen, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMGN), around 0.69% of its 13F portfolio. QVT Financial is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 0.6 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to IMGN.

Judging by the fact that ImmunoGen, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMGN) has experienced a decline in interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s easy to see that there were a few money managers who sold off their positions entirely last quarter. Interestingly, Arthur B Cohen and Joseph Healey’s Healthcor Management LP dropped the largest investment of the “upper crust” of funds monitored by Insider Monkey, comprising about $5.5 million in stock, and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $3.1 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 2 funds last quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to ImmunoGen, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMGN). These stocks are Betterware de Mexico, S.A. de C.V. (NASDAQ:BWMX), Jumia Technologies AG (NYSE:JMIA), Precigen, Inc. (NYSE:PGEN), Global Medical REIT Inc. (NYSE:GMRE), Hyster-Yale Materials Handling Inc (NYSE:HY), Sportsman’s Warehouse Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:SPWH), and MYR Group Inc (NASDAQ:MYRG). This group of stocks’ market caps match IMGN’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 11 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $36 million. That figure was $130 million in IMGN’s case. Sportsman’s Warehouse Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:SPWH) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Betterware de Mexico, S.A. de C.V. (NASDAQ:BWMX) is the least popular one with only 2 bullish hedge fund positions. ImmunoGen, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMGN) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for IMGN is 63.3. 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 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.3% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10 percentage points. These stocks gained 30.7% in 2020 through December 14th and still beat the market by 15.8 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on IMGN as the stock returned 101.7% since the end of Q3 (through 12/14) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

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