The 800+ hedge funds and famous money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the second quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of September 30th. 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 SAGE Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:SAGE).
SAGE Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:SAGE) shareholders have witnessed a decrease in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds in recent months. SAGE Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:SAGE) was in 22 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 38. There were 27 hedge funds in our database with SAGE holdings at the end of June. Our calculations also showed that SAGE isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).
At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium prices have more than doubled over the past year, so we go through lists like the 10 best EV 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. Now let’s go over the latest hedge fund action encompassing SAGE Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:SAGE).
Bruce Kovner of Caxton Associates LP
Do Hedge Funds Think SAGE Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
Heading into the fourth quarter of 2021, a total of 22 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -19% from the previous quarter. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in SAGE over the last 25 quarters. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
Among these funds, D E Shaw held the most valuable stake in SAGE Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:SAGE), which was worth $55.7 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Point72 Asset Management which amassed $33.6 million worth of shares. Citadel Investment Group, Palo Alto Investors, and AQR Capital Management 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 Integral Health Asset Management allocated the biggest weight to SAGE Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:SAGE), around 4.06% of its 13F portfolio. Great Point Partners is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 2.78 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to SAGE.
Judging by the fact that SAGE Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:SAGE) has faced bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, it’s easy to see that there was a specific group of funds that elected to cut their entire stakes heading into Q4. Intriguingly, Neil Shahrestani’s Ikarian Capital dumped the biggest position of the 750 funds tracked by Insider Monkey, valued at close to $14.4 million in stock. Manfred Yu’s fund, Acuta Capital Partners, also dropped its stock, about $2.9 million worth. These moves are important to note, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 5 funds heading into Q4.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as SAGE Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:SAGE) but similarly valued. These stocks are Comfort Systems USA, Inc. (NYSE:FIX), Intercorp Financial Services Inc. (NYSE:IFS), Grupo Aeroportuario del Centro Norte, S.A.B. de C.V. (NASDAQ:OMAB), Erasca Inc. (NASDAQ:ERAS), BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:BCRX), Newmark Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:NMRK), and Masonite International Corp (NYSE:DOOR). All of these stocks’ market caps match SAGE’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| FIX | 19 | 60926 | -5 |
| IFS | 5 | 29773 | 1 |
| OMAB | 6 | 19026 | 2 |
| ERAS | 12 | 506231 | 12 |
| BCRX | 20 | 420526 | -5 |
| NMRK | 20 | 249971 | -1 |
| DOOR | 21 | 308489 | -3 |
| Average | 14.7 | 227849 | 0.1 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 14.7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $228 million. That figure was $235 million in SAGE’s case. Masonite International Corp (NYSE:DOOR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Intercorp Financial Services Inc. (NYSE:IFS) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks SAGE Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:SAGE) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for SAGE is 67.4. 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. 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 29.6% in 2021 and still beat the market by 3.6 percentage points. Unfortunately SAGE wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on SAGE were disappointed as the stock returned -4% since the end of the third quarter (through 12/31) 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 since 2019.
Follow Sage Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:SAGE)
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
