Insider Monkey has processed numerous 13F filings of hedge funds and successful value investors to create an extensive database of hedge fund holdings. The 13F filings show the hedge funds’ and successful investors’ positions as of the end of the second quarter. You can find articles about an individual hedge fund’s trades on numerous financial news websites. However, in this article we will take a look at their collective moves over the last 6 years and analyze what the smart money thinks of Cerus Corporation (NASDAQ:CERS) based on that data.
Cerus Corporation (NASDAQ:CERS) was in 19 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the second quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic was previously 18. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. CERS investors should be aware of an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds of late. There were 15 hedge funds in our database with CERS positions at the end of the first quarter. Our calculations also showed that CERS isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).
In the 21st century investor’s toolkit there are several gauges market participants put to use to evaluate stocks. Some of the most useful gauges are hedge fund and insider trading moves. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the best fund managers can outpace the broader indices by a very impressive margin (see the details here). Also, our monthly newsletter’s portfolio of long stock picks returned 185.4% since March 2017 (through August 2021) and beat the S&P 500 Index by more than 79 percentage points. You can download a sample issue of this newsletter on our website.
Tim Woolley of Polar Capital
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Do Hedge Funds Think CERS Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At second quarter’s end, a total of 19 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 27% from the first quarter of 2020. On the other hand, there were a total of 14 hedge funds with a bullish position in CERS a year ago. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
Among these funds, ARK Investment Management held the most valuable stake in Cerus Corporation (NASDAQ:CERS), which was worth $123.8 million at the end of the second quarter. On the second spot was Baker Bros. Advisors which amassed $81 million worth of shares. Rima Senvest Management, D E Shaw, and Intrinsic Edge Capital 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 Roubaix Capital allocated the biggest weight to Cerus Corporation (NASDAQ:CERS), around 1.88% of its 13F portfolio. Rima Senvest Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.42 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to CERS.
With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Polar Capital, managed by Brian Ashford-Russell and Tim Woolley, initiated the biggest position in Cerus Corporation (NASDAQ:CERS). Polar Capital had $4.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Christopher Hillary’s Roubaix Capital also initiated a $3 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new CERS investors: Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates, Michael Gelband’s ExodusPoint Capital, and Devesh Gandhi’s SilverArc Capital.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Cerus Corporation (NASDAQ:CERS) but similarly valued. These stocks are Affimed NV (NASDAQ:AFMD), Quotient Technology Inc (NYSE:QUOT), First Foundation Inc (NASDAQ:FFWM), Celestica Inc. (NYSE:CLS), Apartment Investment and Management Co. (NYSE:AIV), Diebold Nixdorf Incorporated (NYSE:DBD), and Score Media and Gaming Inc. (NASDAQ:SCR). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to CERS’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| AFMD | 25 | 240790 | 2 |
| QUOT | 24 | 465804 | -1 |
| FFWM | 18 | 54375 | 2 |
| CLS | 14 | 123207 | 1 |
| AIV | 15 | 147295 | -3 |
| DBD | 17 | 180799 | -2 |
| SCR | 8 | 16744 | -4 |
| Average | 17.3 | 175573 | -0.7 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 17.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $176 million. That figure was $250 million in CERS’s case. Affimed NV (NASDAQ:AFMD) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Score Media and Gaming Inc. (NASDAQ:SCR) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Cerus Corporation (NASDAQ:CERS) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for CERS is 71.4. 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 24% in 2021 through October 22nd and still beat the market by 1.6 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on CERS as the stock returned 5.6% since the end of Q2 (through 10/22) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
