While the market driven by short-term sentiment influenced by the accommodative interest rate environment in the US, virus news and stimulus spending, many smart money investors are starting to get cautious towards the current bull run since March, 2020 and hedging or reducing many of their long positions. Some fund managers are betting on Dow hitting 40,000 to generate strong returns. However, as we know, big investors usually buy stocks with strong fundamentals that can deliver gains both in bull and bear markets, which is why we believe we can profit from imitating them. In this article, we are going to take a look at the smart money sentiment surrounding Qiagen NV (NASDAQ:QGEN).
Qiagen NV (NASDAQ:QGEN) has seen an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds in recent months. Qiagen NV (NASDAQ:QGEN) was in 27 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 51. Our calculations also showed that QGEN isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).
At the moment there are dozens of formulas stock traders employ to analyze their stock investments. A couple of the less utilized formulas are hedge fund and insider trading interest. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the elite investment managers can beat their index-focused peers by a very impressive amount (see the details here). Also, our monthly newsletter’s portfolio of long stock picks returned 206.8% since March 2017 (through May 2021) and beat the S&P 500 Index by more than 115 percentage points. You can download a sample issue of this newsletter on our website .
John Overdeck of Two Sigma Advisors
At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, economists warn of inflation flare up. So, we are checking out this backdoor gold play that has hit peak gains of 718% in a little over a year. We go through lists like the 10 best battery stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. 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 homepage. With all of this in mind let’s check out the recent hedge fund action regarding Qiagen NV (NASDAQ:QGEN).
Do Hedge Funds Think QGEN Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
Heading into the second quarter of 2021, a total of 27 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 13% from the fourth quarter of 2020. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards QGEN over the last 23 quarters. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
More specifically, Millennium Management was the largest shareholder of Qiagen NV (NASDAQ:QGEN), with a stake worth $186.6 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing Millennium Management was Farallon Capital, which amassed a stake valued at $123.6 million. Senator Investment Group, Healthcor Management LP, 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 Eversept Partners allocated the biggest weight to Qiagen NV (NASDAQ:QGEN), around 1.75% of its 13F portfolio. Chescapmanager LLC is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 1.45 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to QGEN.
As industrywide interest jumped, key hedge funds have jumped into Qiagen NV (NASDAQ:QGEN) headfirst. Senator Investment Group, managed by Doug Silverman and Alexander Klabin, established the most outsized position in Qiagen NV (NASDAQ:QGEN). Senator Investment Group had $48.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Arthur B Cohen and Joseph Healey’s Healthcor Management LP also initiated a $40.8 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new QGEN investors: Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, Zach Schreiber’s Point State Capital, and Michel Massoud’s Melqart Asset Management.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Qiagen NV (NASDAQ:QGEN) but similarly valued. These stocks are Globe Life Inc. (NYSE:GL), Bunge Limited (NYSE:BG), The Gap Inc. (NYSE:GPS), Universal Display Corporation (NASDAQ:OLED), Playtika Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:PLTK), The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC), and Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation (NYSE:BAH). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to QGEN’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| GL | 33 | 844018 | 2 |
| BG | 44 | 653455 | -7 |
| GPS | 42 | 988959 | 4 |
| OLED | 17 | 95398 | -7 |
| PLTK | 21 | 444574 | 21 |
| TTC | 32 | 1016572 | 1 |
| BAH | 29 | 178958 | 2 |
| Average | 31.1 | 603133 | 2.3 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 31.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $603 million. That figure was $563 million in QGEN’s case. Bunge Limited (NYSE:BG) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Universal Display Corporation (NASDAQ:OLED) is the least popular one with only 17 bullish hedge fund positions. Qiagen NV (NASDAQ:QGEN) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for QGEN is 42.4. 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. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 24% in 2021 through July 9th and surpassed the market again by 6.7 percentage points. Unfortunately QGEN wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); QGEN investors were disappointed as the stock returned 3.8% since the end of March (through 7/9) 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 in 2021.
Follow Qiagen Nv (NASDAQ:QGEN)
Follow Qiagen Nv (NASDAQ:QGEN)
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
