Hedge Funds Are Crazy About IVERIC bio, Inc. (ISEE)

In this article we will analyze whether IVERIC bio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISEE) is a good investment right now by following the lead of some of the best investors in the world and piggybacking their ideas. There’s no better way to get these firms’ immense resources and analytical capabilities working for us than to follow their lead into their best ideas. While not all of these picks will be winners, our research shows that these picks historically outperformed the market by double digits annually.

IVERIC bio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISEE) investors should pay attention to an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers recently. IVERIC bio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISEE) was in 38 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 38. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. Our calculations also showed that ISEE isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium prices have more than doubled over the past year, so we go through lists like the 10 best EV stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. With all of this in mind we’re going to analyze the fresh hedge fund action surrounding IVERIC bio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISEE).

Do Hedge Funds Think ISEE Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At third quarter’s end, a total of 38 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 46% from the second quarter of 2021. On the other hand, there were a total of 26 hedge funds with a bullish position in ISEE a year ago. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

Among these funds, Perceptive Advisors held the most valuable stake in IVERIC bio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISEE), which was worth $121.3 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Avoro Capital Advisors (venBio Select Advisor) which amassed $115.3 million worth of shares. Vivo Capital, Yiheng Capital, and Deerfield Management were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Commodore Capital allocated the biggest weight to IVERIC bio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISEE), around 11.78% of its 13F portfolio. Acuta Capital Partners is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 6.5 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to ISEE.

Now, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Polar Capital, managed by Brian Ashford-Russell and Tim Woolley, established the most valuable position in IVERIC bio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISEE). Polar Capital had $25.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Christopher James’s Partner Fund Management also initiated a $18.5 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Richard Driehaus’s Driehaus Capital, Didric Cederholm’s Lion Point, and Efrem Kamen’s Pura Vida Investments.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as IVERIC bio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISEE) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Unisys Corporation (NYSE:UIS), Danaos Corporation (NYSE:DAC), Northwest Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:NWBI), Aeva Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:AEVA), ICF International Inc (NASDAQ:ICFI), BTRS Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BTRS), and Ferro Corporation (NYSE:FOE). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to ISEE’s market valuation.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 16 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $171 million. That figure was $803 million in ISEE’s case. BTRS Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BTRS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Aeva Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:AEVA) is the least popular one with only 9 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks IVERIC bio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISEE) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for ISEE is 90. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 28.6% in 2021 through November 30th and still beat the market by 5.6 percentage points. Unfortunately ISEE wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on ISEE were disappointed as the stock returned -10% since the end of the third quarter (through 11/30) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

Suggested Articles:

• 10 Popular Penny Stocks on Robinhood
• 20 Most Deadliest and Dangerous Snakes In the World
• 10 Best Tech Stocks to Buy According to Japanese Billionaire Masayoshi Son

Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.