Hedge Funds Aren’t Crazy About SciClone Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SCLN) Anymore

The 700+ hedge funds and money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the third quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of September 30. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund positions. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards SciClone Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCLN).

Is SciClone Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCLN) a healthy stock for your portfolio? Prominent investors are reducing their bets on the stock. The number of long hedge fund positions fell by 6 lately. 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 PennyMac Financial Services Inc (NYSE:PFSI), Elizabeth Arden, Inc. (NASDAQ:RDEN), and Bridgepoint Education Inc (NYSE:BPI) to gather more data points.

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In the eyes of most market participants, hedge funds are assumed to be slow, old financial vehicles of years past. While there are greater than 8000 funds trading at present, Our experts choose to focus on the bigwigs of this group, around 700 funds. These investment experts have their hands on most of all hedge funds’ total asset base, and by keeping an eye on their first-class equity investments, Insider Monkey has discovered a number of investment strategies that have historically defeated the broader indices. Insider Monkey’s small-cap hedge fund strategy surpassed the S&P 500 index by 12 percentage points a year for a decade in their back tests.

Keeping this in mind, we’re going to analyze the key action regarding SciClone Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCLN).

How are hedge funds trading SciClone Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCLN)?

At Q3’s end, a total of 14 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a drop of 30% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management has the biggest position in SciClone Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCLN), worth close to $5.4 million and comprising less than 0.1% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Renaissance Technologies, led by Jim Simons, holding a $3.1 million position; the fund has less than 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other hedge funds and institutional investors that are bullish consist of D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management and Peter Muller’s PDT Partners.

Because SciClone Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCLN) has experienced bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, we can see that there was a specific group of hedge funds that decided to sell off their entire stakes last quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital said goodbye to the largest stake of the 700 funds followed by Insider Monkey, valued at an estimated $1.5 million in stock, and Neil Chriss’s Hutchin Hill Capital was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $0.8 million worth of SCLN shares. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 6 funds last quarter.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as SciClone Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCLN) but similarly valued. These stocks are PennyMac Financial Services Inc (NYSE:PFSI), Elizabeth Arden, Inc. (NASDAQ:RDEN), Bridgepoint Education Inc (NYSE:BPI), and LinnCo LLC (NASDAQ:LNCO). All of these stocks’ market caps are similar to SCLN’s market cap.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
PFSI 16 161562 0
RDEN 8 22180 -1
BPI 11 38940 -4
LNCO 13 10754 5

As you can see these stocks had an average of 12 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $58 million. That figure was a poor $21 million in SCLN’s case. PennyMac Financial Services Inc (NYSE:PFSI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Elizabeth Arden, Inc. (NASDAQ:RDEN) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. SciClone Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCLN) is not the most popular stock in this group, but hedge fund interest is still above average. While this is a slightly positive signal, we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard PFSI might be a better candidate to consider a long position.