Is ANAB Stock A Buy or Sell?

Hedge funds and large money managers usually invest with a focus on the long-term horizon and, therefore, short-lived dips or bumps on the charts usually don’t make them change their opinion towards a company. This time it may be different. The coronavirus pandemic destroyed the high correlations among major industries and asset classes. We are now in a stock pickers market where fundamentals of a stock have more effect on the price than the overall direction of the market. As a result we observe sudden and large changes in hedge fund positions depending on the news flow. Let’s take a look at the hedge fund sentiment towards AnaptysBio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANAB) to find out whether there were any major changes in hedge funds’ views.

Is ANAB stock a buy? AnaptysBio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANAB) has experienced an increase in hedge fund interest in recent months. AnaptysBio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANAB) was in 26 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the fourth quarter of 2020. The all time high for this statistic is 27. Our calculations also showed that ANAB isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q4 rankings).

In the 21st century investor’s toolkit there are several methods stock market investors use to appraise stocks. Two of the most useful methods are hedge fund and insider trading moves. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the top fund managers can trounce the S&P 500 by a significant amount (see the details here).

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, the CBD market is growing at a 33% annualized rate, so we are taking a closer look at this under-the-radar hemp stock. We go through lists like the 10 best biotech stocks under $10 to identify the next stock with 10x upside potential. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our website. With all of this in mind let’s take a glance at the key hedge fund action surrounding AnaptysBio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANAB).

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

Heading into the first quarter of 2021, a total of 26 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 8% from the third quarter of 2020. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in ANAB over the last 22 quarters. So, let’s find out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

The largest stake in AnaptysBio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANAB) was held by EcoR1 Capital, which reported holding $69.3 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by Tang Capital Management with a $56.5 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Aquilo Capital Management, Perceptive Advisors, and Frazier Healthcare Partners. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Tang Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to AnaptysBio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANAB), around 8.63% of its 13F portfolio. Aquilo Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 5.43 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to ANAB.

Now, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Perceptive Advisors, managed by Joseph Edelman, initiated the biggest position in AnaptysBio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANAB). Perceptive Advisors had $25.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management also initiated a $16.3 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new ANAB investors: C. Ashton Newhall and James Lim’s Greenspring Associates, Kamran Moghtaderi’s Eversept Partners, and Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to AnaptysBio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANAB). We will take a look at U.S. Auto Parts Network, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTS), CURO Group Holdings Corp. (NYSE:CURO), Cooper-Standard Holdings Inc (NYSE:CPS), Brookfield Property REIT Inc. (NASDAQ:BPYU), Aegion Corp (NASDAQ:AEGN), Ardelyx Inc (NASDAQ:ARDX), and AngioDynamics, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANGO). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble ANAB’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 14.7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $86 million. That figure was $314 million in ANAB’s case. CURO Group Holdings Corp. (NYSE:CURO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Brookfield Property REIT Inc. (NASDAQ:BPYU) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks AnaptysBio, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANAB) is more popular among hedge funds. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for ANAB is 85.9. 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 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 81.2% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 26 percentage points. These stocks gained 12.3% in 2021 through April 19th and still beat the market by 0.9 percentage points. Unfortunately ANAB wasn’t nearly as popular as these 30 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on ANAB were disappointed as the stock returned 1.2% since the end of the fourth quarter (through 4/19) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

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

Follow Insider Monkey on Twitter