The 700+ hedge funds and 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 positions. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards Quidel Corporation (NASDAQ:QDEL).
Quidel Corporation (NASDAQ:QDEL) shareholders have witnessed an increase in hedge fund interest lately. There were 6 hedge funds in our database with QDEL holdings at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare QDEL to other stocks including INTL Fcstone Inc (NASDAQ:INTL), Oritani Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:ORIT), and Instructure Inc (NYSE:INST) to get a better sense of its popularity.
Follow Quidel Corp (NASDAQ:QDEL)
Follow Quidel Corp (NASDAQ:QDEL)
At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.
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With all of this in mind, we’re going to analyze the new action encompassing Quidel Corporation (NASDAQ:QDEL).
What have hedge funds been doing with Quidel Corporation (NASDAQ:QDEL)?
At the end of the third quarter, a total of 7 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 17% from the second quarter of 2016. By comparison, 9 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in QDEL heading into this year. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, GAMCO Investors, led by Mario Gabelli, holds the biggest position in Quidel Corporation (NASDAQ:QDEL). GAMCO Investors has a $13.8 million position in the stock, comprising 0.1% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Renaissance Technologies, one of the largest hedge funds in the world, with a $10.7 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other professional money managers that are bullish contain D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.
Now, key money managers were breaking ground themselves. Arrowstreet Capital, led by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell, established the most outsized position in Quidel Corporation (NASDAQ:QDEL). Arrowstreet Capital had $0.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Quidel Corporation (NASDAQ:QDEL) but similarly valued. We will take a look at INTL Fcstone Inc (NASDAQ:INTL), Oritani Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:ORIT), Instructure Inc (NYSE:INST), and Instructure Inc (NYSE:INST). All of these stocks’ market caps are similar to QDEL’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| INTL | 10 | 92153 | 2 |
| ORIT | 14 | 47633 | 3 |
| INST | 9 | 31791 | 4 |
| INST | 9 | 31791 | 4 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 10.5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $51 million. That figure was $43 million in QDEL’s case. Oritani Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:ORIT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Instructure Inc (NYSE:INST) is the least popular one with only 9 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Quidel Corporation (NASDAQ:QDEL) is even less popular than INST. Considering that hedge funds aren’t fond of this stock in relation to other companies analyzed in this article, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and understand why the smart money isn’t behind this stock. This isn’t necessarily bad news. Although it is possible that hedge funds may think the stock is overpriced and view the stock as a short candidate, they may not be very familiar with the bullish thesis. In either case more research is warranted.
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