MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ:MNKD) has gotten one of the biggest votes of confidence we’ve seen from the smart money, out of the entire stock market universe and the 500+ elite hedge funds we track. Simply, wow.
In the eyes of many of your fellow readers, hedge funds are perceived as bloated, outdated investment tools of an era lost to time. Although there are In excess of 8,000 hedge funds in operation currently, Insider Monkey looks at the top tier of this group, around 525 funds. It is assumed that this group controls most of the hedge fund industry’s total capital, and by keeping an eye on their highest quality picks, we’ve brought to light a few investment strategies that have historically outstripped the S&P 500. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per year for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve began to sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have outpaced the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (explore the details and some picks here).
Just as crucial, optimistic insider trading sentiment is another way to analyze the investments you’re interested in. Just as you’d expect, there are plenty of reasons for an insider to cut shares of his or her company, but only one, very clear reason why they would buy. Various academic studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this tactic if shareholders know what to do (learn more here).
What’s more, we’re going to examine the newest info surrounding MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ:MNKD).
Hedge fund activity in MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ:MNKD)
In preparation for the third quarter, a total of 10 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 67% from one quarter earlier. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes substantially.
As one would understandably expect, certain bigger names have been driving this bullishness. Tang Capital Management, managed by Kevin C. Tang, initiated the largest position in MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ:MNKD). Tang Capital Management had 33.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Noam Gottesman’s GLG Partners also initiated a $14.5 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new MNKD positions are Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management, Kevin C. Tang’s Tang Capital Management, and Howard Marks’s Oaktree Capital Management.
How are insiders trading MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ:MNKD)?
Bullish insider trading is particularly usable when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last 180-day time frame, MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ:MNKD) has seen 2 unique insiders purchasing, and 2 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
We’ll check out the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ:MNKD). These stocks are VIVUS, Inc. (NASDAQ:VVUS), NPS Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:NPSP), Celldex Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:CLDX), PDL BioPharma Inc. (NASDAQ:PDLI), and Puma Biotechnology Inc (NYSE:PBYI). This group of stocks belong to the biotechnology industry and their market caps are closest to MNKD’s market cap.
