Is FOLD Stock A Buy or Sell?

Before we spend countless hours researching a company, we like to analyze what insiders, hedge funds and billionaire investors think of the stock first. This is a necessary first step in our investment process because our research has shown that the elite investors’ consensus returns have been exceptional. In the following paragraphs, we find out what the billionaire investors and hedge funds think of Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:FOLD).

Is FOLD stock a buy? Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:FOLD) was in 37 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of December. The all time high for this statistic is 38. FOLD has experienced a decrease in hedge fund sentiment of late. There were 38 hedge funds in our database with FOLD holdings at the end of September. Our calculations also showed that FOLD isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q4 rankings).

Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research was able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 124 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here).

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, the House passed a landmark bill decriminalizing marijuana. So, we are checking out this under the radar cannabis stock right now. We go through lists like the 10 best battery stocks to buy 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. Now let’s view the latest hedge fund action surrounding Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:FOLD).

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

At fourth quarter’s end, a total of 37 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -3% from the third quarter of 2020. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards FOLD over the last 22 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.

More specifically, Perceptive Advisors was the largest shareholder of Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:FOLD), with a stake worth $579.8 million reported as of the end of December. Trailing Perceptive Advisors was Redmile Group, which amassed a stake valued at $476.1 million. Avoro Capital Advisors (venBio Select Advisor), Palo Alto Investors, and D E Shaw 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 Palo Alto Investors allocated the biggest weight to Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:FOLD), around 9.52% of its 13F portfolio. Perceptive Advisors is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 6.22 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to FOLD.

Judging by the fact that Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:FOLD) has witnessed bearish sentiment from the smart money, we can see that there lies a certain “tier” of money managers that decided to sell off their entire stakes last quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management dumped the largest position of all the hedgies watched by Insider Monkey, comprising close to $21.8 million in stock. Richard Schimel and Lawrence Sapanski’s fund, Cinctive Capital Management, also dropped its stock, about $3.1 million worth. These moves are important to note, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 1 funds last quarter.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:FOLD). These stocks are Corelogic Inc (NYSE:CLGX), Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. (NASDAQ:PAA), Old Republic International Corporation (NYSE:ORI), NeoGenomics, Inc. (NASDAQ:NEO), Apartment Income REIT Corp. (NYSE:AIRC), Brunswick Corporation (NYSE:BC), and YETI Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:YETI). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to FOLD’s market value.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 24.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $547 million. That figure was $1944 million in FOLD’s case. Corelogic Inc (NYSE:CLGX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. (NASDAQ:PAA) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:FOLD) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for FOLD is 70.7. 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 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 7.9% in 2021 through April 1st and beat the market again by 0.4 percentage points. Unfortunately FOLD wasn’t nearly as popular as these 30 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on FOLD were disappointed as the stock returned -56.4% since the end of December (through 4/1) 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 many of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

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