The Insider Monkey team has completed processing the quarterly 13F filings for the March quarter submitted by the hedge funds and other money managers included in our extensive database. Most hedge fund investors experienced strong gains on the back of a strong market performance, which certainly propelled them to adjust their equity holdings so as to maintain the desired risk profile. As a result, the relevancy of these public filings and their content is indisputable, as they may reveal numerous high-potential stocks. The following article will discuss the smart money sentiment towards AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV).
AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV) was in 72 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 89. ABBV has experienced a decrease in support from the world’s most elite money managers recently. There were 83 hedge funds in our database with ABBV positions at the end of the fourth quarter. Our calculations also showed that ABBV isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).
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Do Hedge Funds Think ABBV Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
Heading into the second quarter of 2021, a total of 72 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -13% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards ABBV over the last 23 quarters. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
More specifically, Berkshire Hathaway was the largest shareholder of AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV), with a stake worth $2474.8 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing Berkshire Hathaway was Orbis Investment Management, which amassed a stake valued at $737.7 million. Two Sigma Advisors, GQG Partners, and Diamond Hill Capital 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 Copernicus Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV), around 10.49% of its 13F portfolio. HealthInvest Partners AB is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 5.95 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to ABBV.
Because AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV) has experienced bearish sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it’s safe to say that there exists a select few hedge funds that decided to sell off their full holdings heading into Q2. Intriguingly, Jeremy Green’s Redmile Group dumped the biggest stake of the 750 funds tracked by Insider Monkey, totaling about $148.8 million in stock, and Farallon Capital was right behind this move, as the fund dumped about $123.2 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 11 funds heading into Q2.
Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ:AVGO), Accenture Plc (NYSE:ACN), Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE:TMO), Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY), Texas Instruments Incorporated (NASDAQ:TXN), BHP Group (NYSE:BHP), and McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD). This group of stocks’ market valuations resemble ABBV’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| AVGO | 53 | 3313279 | -6 |
| ACN | 48 | 2350908 | -2 |
| TMO | 79 | 6254066 | -10 |
| LLY | 55 | 2522416 | 5 |
| TXN | 42 | 2532768 | -14 |
| BHP | 18 | 873686 | -2 |
| MCD | 67 | 3783829 | 5 |
| Average | 51.7 | 3090136 | -3.4 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 51.7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $3090 million. That figure was $5917 million in ABBV’s case. Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE:TMO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand BHP Group (NYSE:BHP) is the least popular one with only 18 bullish hedge fund positions. AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for ABBV is 62.5. 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 positive signal but 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 25.8% in 2021 through August 6th and beat the market again by 6.7 percentage points. Unfortunately ABBV wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on ABBV were disappointed as the stock returned 8.2% since the end of March (through 8/6) 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 many of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.
Follow Abbvie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV)
Follow Abbvie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV)
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
