Do Hedge Funds Love Synergy Pharmaceuticals Inc (SGYP)?

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 funds have been producing disappointing net returns in recent years, however that was partly due to the poor performance of small-cap stocks in general. Well, small-cap stocks finally turned the corner and have been beating the large-cap stocks by more than 10 percentage points over the last 5 months.This means the relevancy of hedge funds’ public filings became inarguable, as they may reveal numerous high-potential stocks. The following article will discuss the smart money sentiment towards Synergy Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:SGYP) .

Is Synergy Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:SGYP) undervalued? Investors who are in the know are indeed getting more bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund bets grew by 3 lately. SGYP was in 23 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 20 hedge funds in our database with SGYP positions at the end of the previous quarter. The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as Hyster-Yale Materials Handling Inc (NYSE:HY), Golub Capital BDC Inc (NASDAQ:GBDC), and Boise Cascade Co (NYSE:BCC) to gather more data points.

Follow Synergy Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:SGYP)

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

pharmacist, medical, retail, worker, team, young, staff, lab, chemistry, business, drug, chemist, adult, teamwork, drugstore, service,

wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock.com

What does the smart money think about Synergy Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:SGYP)?

At Q3’s end, a total of 23 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, up by 15% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 24 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in SGYP heading into this year. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

HedgeFundSentimentChart (38)

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Paulson & Co, led by John Paulson, holds the most valuable position in Synergy Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:SGYP). Paulson & Co has a $133.5 million position in the stock, comprising 1.4% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Jeffrey Jay and David Kroin of Great Point Partners, with a $35.4 million position; 9% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other hedge funds and institutional investors that hold long positions consist of Samuel Isaly’s OrbiMed Advisors, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and Mark Kingdon’s Kingdon Capital. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.

Consequently, some big names have been driving this bullishness. Sabby Capital, led by Hal Mintz, assembled the biggest call position in Synergy Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:SGYP). Sabby Capital had $4.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Gavin Saitowitz and Cisco J. del Valle’s Springbok Capital also initiated a $0.8 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new SGYP positions are Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Joseph Edelman’s Perceptive Advisors, and Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Synergy Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:SGYP). These stocks are Hyster-Yale Materials Handling Inc (NYSE:HY), Golub Capital BDC Inc (NASDAQ:GBDC), Boise Cascade Co (NYSE:BCC), and Grupo Supervielle SA -ADR (NYSE:SUPV). This group of stocks’ market valuations resemble SGYP’s market valuation.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
HY 10 38550 1
GBDC 7 32186 -1
BCC 15 50761 -1
SUPV 10 168359 0

As you can see these stocks had an average of 11 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $72 million. That figure was $246 million in SGYP’s case. Boise Cascade Co (NYSE:BCC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Golub Capital BDC Inc (NASDAQ:GBDC) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Synergy Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:SGYP) is more popular among hedge funds. Considering that hedge funds are fond of this stock in relation to its market cap peers, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and potentially include it in your portfolio.

Disclosure: None