Is Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NKTR) a good investment?
Now, according to many of your peers, hedge funds are assumed to be useless, outdated investment vehicles of a forgotten age. Although there are more than 8,000 hedge funds trading today, Insider Monkey looks at the aristocrats of this group, close to 525 funds. It is widely held that this group oversees most of the hedge fund industry’s total assets, and by watching their highest performing equity investments, we’ve revealed a few investment strategies that have historically beaten the market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per annum for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve started sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have trumped the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (see all of our picks from August).
Equally as crucial, bullish insider trading activity is another way to analyze the investments you’re interested in. There are a variety of stimuli for an upper level exec to sell shares of his or her company, but only one, very simple reason why they would behave bullishly. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this method if piggybackers know where to look (learn more here).
Furthermore, let’s study the latest info for Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NKTR).
How have hedgies been trading Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NKTR)?
Heading into Q3, a total of 10 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 25% from the first quarter. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings considerably.
Consequently, certain bigger names were breaking ground themselves. Healthcor Management LP, managed by Arthur B Cohen and Joseph Healey, established the largest position in Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NKTR). Healthcor Management LP had 46.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. James E. Flynn’s Deerfield Management also made a $34 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Kevin C. Tang’s Tang Capital Management, Steven Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors, and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.
How have insiders been trading Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NKTR)?
Insider buying is best served when the company in focus has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the last six-month time frame, Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NKTR) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
We’ll go over the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NKTR). These stocks are Santarus, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNTS), Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:LXRX), Sarepta Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:SRPT), ImmunoGen, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMGN), and Acorda Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:ACOR). This group of stocks belong to the biotechnology industry and their market caps are closest to NKTR’s market cap.
| Company Name | # of Hedge Funds | # of Insiders Buying | # of Insiders Selling |
| Santarus, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNTS) | 21 | 0 | 0 |
| Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:LXRX) | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| Sarepta Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:SRPT) | 15 | 0 | 0 |
| ImmunoGen, Inc. (NASDAQ:IMGN) | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| Acorda Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:ACOR) | 12 | 0 | 0 |
Using the results explained by Insider Monkey’s research, regular investors must always keep one eye on hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NKTR) is an important part of this process.
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Nektar Therapeutics (NKTR): A Pain Management Play That You Should Explore
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Is Nektar Therapeutics (NKTR) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds?
