Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Agenus Inc (AGEN)

As industrywide interest jumped, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Perceptive Advisors, led by Joseph Edelman, initiated the largest position in Agenus Inc (NASDAQ:AGEN). The fund reportedly had $6.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. David E. Shaw’s D E Shaw also initiated a $1.9 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new AGEN investors: Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Behzad Aghazadeh’s venBio Select Advisor, and Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Agenus Inc (NASDAQ:AGEN) but similarly valued. These stocks are Lakeland Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:LBAI), Newpark Resources Inc (NYSE:NR), HomeStreet Inc (NASDAQ:HMST), and Sapiens International Corporation N.V. (NASDAQ:SPNS). This group of stocks’ market values resemble AGEN’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 9 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $22 million. That figure was $96 million in AGEN’s case. Newpark Resources Inc (NYSE:NR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Sapiens International Corporation N.V. (NASDAQ:SPNS) is the least popular one with only 5 bullish hedge fund positions. Agenus Inc (NASDAQ:AGEN) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard NR might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: none.