Hedge Funds Have Never Been This Bullish On Bio-Techne Corporation (TECH)

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 fund investors experienced strong gains on the back of a strong market performance, which certainly propelled them to adjust their equity holdings so as to maintain the desired risk profile. As a result, the relevancy of these public filings and their content is indisputable, as they may reveal numerous high-potential stocks. The following article will discuss the smart money sentiment towards Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ:TECH).

Is Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ:TECH) a buy, sell, or hold? Money managers were taking an optimistic view. The number of long hedge fund bets increased by 8 lately. Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ:TECH) was in 33 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic was previously 30. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. Our calculations also showed that TECH isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings). There were 25 hedge funds in our database with TECH holdings at the end of June.

Andrew Sandler of Sandler Capital Management

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. Now let’s view the recent hedge fund action surrounding Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ:TECH).

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

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2021, a total of 33 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 32% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards TECH over the last 25 quarters. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Is TECH A Good Stock To Buy?

Among these funds, Marshall Wace LLP held the most valuable stake in Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ:TECH), which was worth $111.8 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Millennium Management which amassed $46.3 million worth of shares. Montanaro Asset Management, Royce & Associates, and Sandler Capital 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 Montanaro Asset Management allocated the biggest weight to Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ:TECH), around 5.46% of its 13F portfolio. Sandler Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 2.95 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to TECH.

As one would reasonably expect, some big names have been driving this bullishness. Adage Capital Management, managed by Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson, created the largest position in Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ:TECH). Adage Capital Management had $20.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Jerome Pfund and Michael Sjostrom’s Sectoral Asset Management also made a $8.5 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new TECH investors: Krishen Sud’s Sivik Global Healthcare, Roberto Mignone’s Bridger Management, and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ:TECH). We will take a look at Raymond James Financial, Inc. (NYSE:RJF), Burlington Stores Inc (NYSE:BURL), Restaurant Brands International Inc (NYSE:QSR), Avangrid, Inc. (NYSE:AGR), Tradeweb Markets Inc. (NASDAQ:TW), Tyler Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:TYL), and Hologic, Inc. (NASDAQ:HOLX). This group of stocks’ market values resemble TECH’s market value.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
RJF 32 767984 3
BURL 45 1835947 2
QSR 22 1873877 0
AGR 9 37232 -3
TW 22 135429 7
TYL 30 772769 -3
HOLX 39 716983 -2
Average 28.4 877174 0.6

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 28.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $877 million. That figure was $432 million in TECH’s case. Burlington Stores Inc (NYSE:BURL) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Avangrid, Inc. (NYSE:AGR) is the least popular one with only 9 bullish hedge fund positions. Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ:TECH) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for TECH is 73.3. 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. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. 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 beat the market again by 5.6 percentage points. Unfortunately TECH wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on TECH were disappointed as the stock returned -2.5% since the end of September (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 many of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

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