Baron Discovery Fund recently published its third-quarter commentary – a copy of which can be downloaded here. During the third quarter of 2020, the Baron Discovery Fund returned 18.83% (institutional shares). This was 11.67% better than the Russell 2000 Growth Index, the Fund’s primary benchmark index. You should check out Baron Discovery Fund’s top 5 stock picks for investors to buy right now, which could be the biggest winners of 2021.
In the Q3 2020 Investor Letter, Baron Discovery Fund highlighted a few stocks and Esperion Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:ESPR) is one of them. Esperion Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:ESPR) is a pharmaceutical company. Year-to-date, Esperion Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:ESPR) stock lost 52.3% and on December 1st it had a closing price of $28.44. Here is what Baron Discovery Fund said:
“Esperion Therapeutics, Inc. is a pharmaceutical company that is launching a new drug in the cardiovascular space, bempodaic acid (“BA”), for patients with elevated LDL cholesterol levels. Upon its approval in February 2020, BA and BA plus ezetimibe (a combination drug), were the first non-statin-based oral LDL lowering drugs launched in a very long time. The drug is effective – BA has been shown to lower LDL cholesterol by as much as 30% to 40% on its own (for the combination version of BA). The company estimates that there are nearly 18 million patients in the U.S. alone who have not achieved their LDL lowering goals, many of whom are not on statins at all (potentially due to adverse reactions). Therefore, the market for this new drug is very large. Additionally, the company has inked deals in the European Union and Japan for large upfront payments, and it expects to sign a deal for rest-of-world rights by the end of 2020. The company launched its drugs right into the teeth of the COVID pandemic, and it was forced to pivot to virtual retailing, which no doubt hurt the initial uptake. As the pandemic recedes, we believe the company will get much better traction, and our diligence indicates that the drug is working as advertised. We maintain conviction in the company given the millions of potential patients suffering from elevated cardiovascular risk markers who cannot take a generic statin, do not want to use an injectable drug, or are otherwise in need of alternative options.”
Nestor Rizhniak/Shutterstock.com
In Q2 2020, the number of bullish hedge fund positions on Esperion Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:ESPR) stock increased by about 6% from the previous quarter (see the chart here), so a number of other hedge fund managers believe in ESPR’s growth potential. Our calculations showed that Esperion Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:ESPR) isn’t ranked among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
The top 10 stocks among hedge funds returned 216% since the end of 2014 and outperformed the S&P 500 Index ETFs by more than 121 percentage points. We know it sounds unbelievable. You have been dismissing our articles about top hedge fund stocks mostly because you were fed biased information by other media outlets about hedge funds’ poor performance. You could have doubled the size of your nest egg by investing in the top hedge fund stocks instead of dumb S&P 500 ETFs. Below you can watch our video about the top 5 hedge fund stocks right now. All of these stocks had positive returns in 2020.
Video: Top 5 Stocks Among Hedge Funds
At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 10 most profitable companies in the world to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. 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 website:
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
