Where Do Hedge Funds Stand On Biogen Inc. (BIIB)?

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 866 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 March 31st. In this article we look at what those investors think of Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ:BIIB).

Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ:BIIB) shares haven’t seen a lot of action during the second quarter. Overall, hedge fund sentiment was unchanged. The stock was in 63 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2021. Our calculations also showed that BIIB isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings). The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as Palantir Technologies Inc. (NYSE:PLTR), EOG Resources Inc (NYSE:EOG), and Roper Technologies Inc. (NYSE:ROP) to gather more data points.

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Alex Denner of Sarissa Capital Management

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Do Hedge Funds Think BIIB Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At first quarter’s end, a total of 63 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 0% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 70 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in BIIB a year ago. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

More specifically, Renaissance Technologies was the largest shareholder of Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ:BIIB), with a stake worth $542.2 million reported as of the end of March. Trailing Renaissance Technologies was AQR Capital Management, which amassed a stake valued at $283.8 million. Perceptive Advisors, Berkshire Hathaway, and Sarissa Capital Management 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 Sarissa Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ:BIIB), around 17.24% of its 13F portfolio. Sabby Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 8.26 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to BIIB.

Since Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ:BIIB) has experienced bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, it’s easy to see that there exists a select few funds that elected to cut their entire stakes in the first quarter. Interestingly, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital dropped the biggest investment of all the hedgies tracked by Insider Monkey, totaling about $77.5 million in stock, and Stephen DuBois’s Camber Capital Management was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $49 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ:BIIB). We will take a look at Palantir Technologies Inc. (NYSE:PLTR), EOG Resources Inc (NYSE:EOG), Roper Technologies Inc. (NYSE:ROP), DoorDash, Inc. (NYSE:DASH), American Electric Power Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:AEP), National Grid plc (NYSE:NGG), and Roku, Inc. (NASDAQ:ROKU). This group of stocks’ market caps match BIIB’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 35.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1848 million. That figure was $2481 million in BIIB’s case. Roku, Inc. (NASDAQ:ROKU) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand National Grid plc (NYSE:NGG) is the least popular one with only 9 bullish hedge fund positions. Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ:BIIB) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for BIIB is 78.3. 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 17.2% in 2021 through June 11th and still beat the market by 3.3 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on BIIB as the stock returned 41.8% since the end of Q1 (through 6/11) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.

Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.