It seems that the masses and most of the financial media hate hedge funds and what they do, but why is this hatred of hedge funds so prominent? At the end of the day, these asset management firms do not gamble the hard-earned money of the people who are on the edge of poverty. Truth be told, most hedge fund managers and other smaller players within this industry are very smart and skilled investors. Of course, they may also make wrong bets in some instances, but no one knows what the future holds and how market participants will react to the bountiful news that floods in each day. The S&P 500 Index gained 7.6% in the 12 month-period that ended November 21, while less than 49% of its stocks beat the benchmark. In contrast, the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks among the top hedge fund investors tracked by the Insider Monkey team returned 18% over the same period, which provides evidence that these money managers do have great stock picking abilities. That’s why we believe it isn’t a waste of time to check out hedge fund sentiment before you invest in a stock like Repligen Corporation (NASDAQ:RGEN).
Repligen Corporation (NASDAQ:RGEN) shares didn’t see a lot of action during the third quarter. Overall, the hedge fund sentiment was unchanged. However, the level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as Royce Value Trust Inc (NYSE:RVT), Safety Insurance Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SAFT), and Ixia (NASDAQ:XXIA) to gather more data points.
Follow Repligen Corp (NASDAQ:RGEN)
Follow Repligen Corp (NASDAQ:RGEN)
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, let’s view the recent action encompassing Repligen Corporation (NASDAQ:RGEN).
Hedge fund activity in Repligen Corporation (NASDAQ:RGEN)
Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 14 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, unchanged over the quarter. By comparison, 12 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in RGEN heading into this year. So, let’s examine 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, Renaissance Technologies, one of the largest hedge funds in the world, has the number one position in Repligen Corporation (NASDAQ:RGEN), worth close to $32.5 million, comprising 0.1% of its total 13F portfolio. On Renaissance Technologies’s heels is Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP, with a $10.7 million position; the fund has 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other peers that are bullish contain Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates, Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management, and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management. 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.
