Is Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIGL) a good investment?
In the eyes of many investors, hedge funds are seen as useless, outdated investment tools of a forgotten age. Although there are In excess of 8,000 hedge funds with their doors open currently, Insider Monkey focuses on the aristocrats of this group, around 525 funds. It is assumed that this group oversees most of all hedge funds’ total assets, and by keeping an eye on their highest quality equity investments, we’ve found a few investment strategies that have historically outstripped the S&P 500. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outpaced the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per annum for a decade in our back tests, and since we‘ve began to sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have outpaced the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (find a sample of our picks).
Just as key, optimistic insider trading activity is another way to analyze the world of equities. Obviously, there are lots of motivations for an upper level exec to cut shares of his or her company, but only one, very simple reason why they would buy. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the valuable potential of this strategy if shareholders understand where to look (learn more here).
Thus, we’re going to examine the newest info about Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIGL).
How have hedgies been trading Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIGL)?
At Q2’s end, a total of 12 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of -29% from one quarter earlier. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes considerably.
Because Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIGL) has faced dropping sentiment from the smart money’s best and brightest, we can see that there is a sect of hedgies that decided to sell off their entire stakes heading into Q2. Intriguingly, Jacob Gottlieb’s Visium Asset Management said goodbye to the largest position of the “upper crust” of funds we watch, comprising an estimated $4.9 million in call options.. Dmitry Balyasny’s fund, Balyasny Asset Management, also cut its call options., about $4.4 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 5 funds heading into Q2.
What do corporate executives and insiders think about Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIGL)?
Bullish insider trading is best served when the primary stock in question has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the last half-year time period, Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIGL) has experienced zero unique insiders purchasing, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).
We’ll go over the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIGL). These stocks are Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:NBIX), Kythera Biopharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:KYTH), Endocyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:ECYT), Intercept Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ICPT), and Keryx Biopharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:KERX). This group of stocks belong to the drug manufacturers – major industry and their market caps match RIGL’s market cap.
| Company Name | # of Hedge Funds | # of Insiders Buying | # of Insiders Selling |
| Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:NBIX) | 19 | 0 | 0 |
| Kythera Biopharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:KYTH) | 13 | 0 | 0 |
| Endocyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:ECYT) | 12 | 0 | 0 |
| Intercept Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ICPT) | 11 | 0 | 0 |
| Keryx Biopharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:KERX) | 13 | 0 | 0 |
Using the results demonstrated by our tactics, regular investors must always keep one eye on hedge fund and insider trading activity, and Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIGL) is an important part of this process.
