Endocyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:ECYT) shareholders have witnessed a decrease in hedge fund sentiment in recent months.
In the financial world, there are tons of indicators investors can use to monitor publicly traded companies. A couple of the best are hedge fund and insider trading interest. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the top money managers can beat the S&P 500 by a superb amount (see just how much).
Equally as key, bullish insider trading sentiment is a second way to parse down the investments you’re interested in. As the old adage goes: there are a variety of reasons for an insider to get rid of shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would behave bullishly. Several academic studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this method if you understand what to do (learn more here).
Keeping this in mind, it’s important to take a look at the recent action surrounding Endocyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:ECYT).
How are hedge funds trading Endocyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:ECYT)?
Heading into 2013, a total of 7 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -30% from the third quarter. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings meaningfully.
Of the funds we track, OrbiMed Advisors, managed by Samuel Isaly, holds the biggest position in Endocyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:ECYT). OrbiMed Advisors has a $8.6 million position in the stock, comprising 0.3% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Visium Asset Management, managed by Jacob Gottlieb, which held a $4 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Other peers that are bullish include Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management and Thomas Bailard’s Bailard Inc.
Seeing as Endocyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:ECYT) has witnessed falling interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, logic holds that there lies a certain “tier” of hedge funds that slashed their entire stakes last quarter. Interestingly, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital cut the largest stake of all the hedgies we monitor, comprising close to $0.4 million in stock.. D. E. Shaw’s fund, D E Shaw, also dumped its stock, about $0.3 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 3 funds last quarter.
How are insiders trading Endocyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:ECYT)?
Insider buying is most useful when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest half-year time frame, Endocyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:ECYT) has experienced 1 unique insiders purchasing, and 3 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
Let’s go over hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Endocyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:ECYT). These stocks are Intercept Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ICPT), Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIGL), Keryx Biopharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:KERX), Astex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTX), and Kythera Biopharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:KYTH). This group of stocks are in the drug manufacturers – major industry and their market caps are similar to ECYT’s market cap.
