The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. We at Insider Monkey have plowed through 867 13F filings that hedge funds and well-known value investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of September 30th. In this article we look at what those investors think of AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV).
AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV) was in 81 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 89. ABBV investors should be aware of a decrease in hedge fund sentiment in recent months. There were 82 hedge funds in our database with ABBV positions at the end of the second quarter. Our calculations also showed that ABBV still ranked 30th among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).
William Gray of Orbis Investment Management
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. With all of this in mind let’s view the latest hedge fund action regarding AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV).
Do Hedge Funds Think ABBV Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At Q3’s end, a total of 81 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -1% from the second quarter of 2021. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards ABBV over the last 25 quarters. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has the most valuable position in AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV), worth close to $1.5532 billion, corresponding to 0.5% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Orbis Investment Management, led by William B. Gray, holding a $324.3 million position; the fund has 2.2% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining peers that are bullish comprise Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Renaissance Technologies and Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Iron Triangle Partners allocated the biggest weight to AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV), around 6.08% of its 13F portfolio. Sphera Global Healthcare Fund is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 5.4 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to ABBV.
Seeing as AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV) has witnessed bearish sentiment from the smart money, we can see that there is a sect of hedge funds that elected to cut their positions entirely heading into Q4. At the top of the heap, Matthew Stadelman’s Diamond Hill Capital dumped the biggest stake of the 750 funds tracked by Insider Monkey, worth an estimated $260.5 million in call options, and Mike Masters’s Masters Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund cut about $112.6 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 1 funds heading into Q4.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV). These stocks are Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC), Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK), AstraZeneca plc (NYSE:AZN), Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS), McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD), Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), and Texas Instruments Incorporated (NASDAQ:TXN). 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| WFC | 88 | 6188279 | -6 |
| MRK | 77 | 4550626 | -2 |
| AZN | 41 | 3757394 | 4 |
| NVS | 22 | 1439973 | 0 |
| MCD | 58 | 3339098 | -8 |
| MS | 65 | 4990950 | -4 |
| TXN | 40 | 1938965 | -10 |
| Average | 55.9 | 3743612 | -3.7 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 55.9 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $3744 million. That figure was $4140 million in ABBV’s case. Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) is the least popular one with only 22 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 76. 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 28.6% in 2021 through November 30th and still beat the market by 5.6 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on ABBV as the stock returned 8.2% since the end of Q3 (through 11/30) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.
Follow Abbvie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV)
Follow Abbvie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV)
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
