Is Celgene Corporation (CELG) A Good Stock To Buy?

Is Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG) a good place to invest some of your money right now? We can gain invaluable insight to help us answer that question by studying the investment trends of top investors, who employ world-class Ivy League graduates, who are given immense resources and industry contacts to put their financial expertise to work. The top picks of these firms have historically outperformed the market when we account for known risk factors, making them very valuable investment ideas.

Is Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG) a cheap investment today? The smart money is betting on the stock. The number of long hedge fund positions advanced by 4 in recent months. Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG) was in 62 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2015. There were 58 hedge funds in our database with Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG) holdings at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article, we will also compare Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG) to other stocks, including Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc (ADR) (NYSE:MTU), QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM), and Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX) to get a better sense of its popularity.

Follow Celgene Corp (NASDAQ:CELG)

At the moment, there are many methods shareholders use to assess publicly traded companies. A pair of the most underrated methods are hedge fund and insider trading activity. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top hedge fund managers can trounce the market by a significant amount (see the details here).

With all of this in mind, we’re going to view the latest action regarding Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG).

What does the smart money think about Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG)?

At the end of Q3, a total of 62 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, an increase of 7% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Samuel Isaly’s OrbiMed Advisors has the largest position in Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG), worth close to $388.7 million, corresponding to 3.9% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Alkeon Capital Management, managed by Panayotis Takis Sparaggis, which holds a $209.3 million position; the fund has 4.4% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other peers that hold long positions consist of Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, and Jerome Pfund and Michael Sjostrom’s Sectoral Asset Management.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key money managers were breaking ground themselves. ZWEIG DIMENNA PARTNERS, managed by Joe DiMenna, established the biggest position in Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG). ZWEIG DIMENNA PARTNERS had $42.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. John Burbank’s Passport Capital also made a $18.9 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new CELG positions are Clifford Fox’s Columbus Circle Investors, Ken Greenberg and David Kim’s Ghost Tree Capital, and Charles Davidson’s Wexford Capital.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG). These stocks are Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc (ADR) (NYSE:MTU), QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM), Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX), and Vodafone Group Plc (ADR) (NASDAQ:VOD). This group of stocks’ market valuations is closest to Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG)’s market valuation.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
MTU 12 89791 -2
QCOM 68 6151514 -1
SBUX 54 1716424 8
VOD 27 744292 -7

As you can see, these stocks had an average of 40 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $2.18 billion. That figure was $2.06 billion in Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG)’s case. QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc (ADR) (NYSE:MTU) is the least popular one with only 12 bullish hedge fund positions. Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG) 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, QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) might be a better candidate to consider a long position.