Birchview Capital’s Top Healthcare Stock Picks

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Birchview Capital is a Vermont-based biosciences-focused long/short equity hedge fund founded by Dr. Matthew Strobeck in 2014. Dr. Strobeck holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati (Ohio) and,, prior to founding Birchview Capital, served as a Partner at Westfield Capital Management and also worked as  a consultant for Thomas Weisel Asset Management. The fund recently submitted its 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), revealing a US equity portfolio worth $140.26 million at the end of March. Though the fund’s portfolio consisted of 40 positions at that time, its top 10 holdings alone accounted for over 90% of the value of its portfolio. The filing also revealed that unlike most other hedge funds that reshuffled their portfolio considerably amid a volatile broader market in the first quarter, Birchview Capital’s equity portfolio had a quarterly turnover of only 15%. This low turnover points towards the fund having a strong conviction on the majority of its stock picks. Keeping that in mind, in this article we will go through the top five healthcare stocks that Birchview Capital was betting on while entering the second quarter.

We track prominent investors and hedge funds because our research has shown that historically their stock picks delivered superior risk-adjusted returns. This is especially true in the small-cap space. The 15 most popular small-cap stocks among a select group of investors delivered a monthly alpha of 80 basis points between 1999 and 2012 (see the details here).

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#5 ContraFect Corp (NASDAQ:CFRX)

– Shares Owned by Birchview Capital (as of March 31): 475,082

– Value of Holding (as of March 31): $1.62 million

From the fifth spot at the end of last year, ContraFect Corp (NASDAQ:CFRX) dropped to the seventh spot in Birchview Capital’s equity portfolio at the end of March despite the fund making no changes to its stake in the company during that period. Shares of the small biotechnology company spiked up in December after its lead drug CF-301 completed Phase 1 trials with no clinical adverse safety signals. However, they have lost almost 54% of their value so far this year. For the first quarter, ContraFect posted a net loss of $0.32, missing analysts’ estimates of a loss of $0.25. On the same day, analysts at Maxim Group reiterated their ‘Buy’ rating on the stock, but lowered their price target on it to $7 from $8.

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