Where Do Hedge Funds Stand On Harpoon Therapeutics, Inc. (HARP)?

The Insider Monkey team has completed processing the quarterly 13F filings for the September 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 Harpoon Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HARP).

Harpoon Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HARP) was in 12 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistics is 11. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. HARP shareholders have witnessed an increase in hedge fund sentiment in recent months. There were 11 hedge funds in our database with HARP holdings at the end of June. Our calculations also showed that HARP isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

To most market participants, hedge funds are viewed as worthless, old investment tools of yesteryear. While there are more than 8000 funds in operation today, We look at the top tier of this club, approximately 850 funds. It is estimated that this group of investors shepherd most of the hedge fund industry’s total asset base, and by keeping track of their matchless equity investments, Insider Monkey has come up with several investment strategies that have historically outpaced the S&P 500 index. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy surpassed the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points a year since its inception in March 2017. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 13% since February 2017 (through November 17th) even though the market was up 65% during the same period. We just shared a list of 6 short targets in our latest quarterly update .

Samuel Isaly, Founder of OrbiMed Advisors

At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 15 best blue chip stocks to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our website. Keeping this in mind we’re going to take a gander at the new hedge fund action encompassing Harpoon Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HARP).

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

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 12 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 9% from the second quarter of 2020. On the other hand, there were a total of 8 hedge funds with a bullish position in HARP a year ago. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

More specifically, OrbiMed Advisors was the largest shareholder of Harpoon Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HARP), with a stake worth $31.2 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing OrbiMed Advisors was Cormorant Asset Management, which amassed a stake valued at $9.7 million. Point72 Asset Management, Bailard Inc, and Renaissance Technologies 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 DAFNA Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Harpoon Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HARP), around 0.47% of its 13F portfolio. OrbiMed Advisors is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.39 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to HARP.

As aggregate interest increased, key money managers have been driving this bullishness. Point72 Asset Management, managed by Steve Cohen, assembled the largest position in Harpoon Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HARP). Point72 Asset Management had $8.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP also made a $0.9 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new HARP positions are Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management and Noam Gottesman’s GLG Partners.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Harpoon Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HARP). We will take a look at Alphatec Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:ATEC), Star Group L.P. (NYSE:SGU), Tribune Publishing Company (NASDAQ:TPCO), Viad Corp (NYSE:VVI), UroGen Pharma Ltd. (NASDAQ:URGN), Lands’ End, Inc. (NASDAQ:LE), and Sabine Royalty Trust (NYSE:SBR). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble HARP’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 10 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $64 million. That figure was $60 million in HARP’s case. Viad Corp (NYSE:VVI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand UroGen Pharma Ltd. (NASDAQ:URGN) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. Harpoon Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HARP) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for HARP is 72.4. 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 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.3% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10 percentage points. These stocks gained 32.9% in 2020 through December 8th and beat the market again by 16.2 percentage points. Unfortunately HARP wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on HARP were disappointed as the stock returned -19.7% since the end of September (through 12/8) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds as many of these stocks already outperformed the market so far this year.

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