Is Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings Inc. (DNA) A Good Stock To Buy?

We at Insider Monkey have gone over 867 13F filings that hedge funds and prominent investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of September 30th. In this article, we look at what those funds think of Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings Inc. (NYSE:DNA) based on that data.

Is DNA a good stock to buy now? Prominent investors were getting more bullish. The number of long hedge fund bets advanced by 32 recently. Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings Inc. (NYSE:DNA) was in 32 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. Our calculations also showed that DNA isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).

Ole Andreas Halvorsen Viking Global

Ole Andreas Halvorsen of Viking Global

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. Keeping this in mind let’s take a glance at the key hedge fund action encompassing Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings Inc. (NYSE:DNA).

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

At the end of September, a total of 32 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 32 from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 0 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in DNA a year ago. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Is DNA A Good Stock To Buy?

The largest stake in Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings Inc. (NYSE:DNA) was held by Viking Global, which reported holding $3511.1 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Senator Investment Group with a $912.2 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Anchorage Advisors, ARK Investment Management, and Casdin Capital. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Anchorage Advisors allocated the biggest weight to Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings Inc. (NYSE:DNA), around 20.15% of its 13F portfolio. Senator Investment Group is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 15.61 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to DNA.

As one would reasonably expect, key money managers were breaking ground themselves. Viking Global, managed by Andreas Halvorsen, initiated the biggest position in Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings Inc. (NYSE:DNA). Viking Global had $3.5111 billion invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Doug Silverman and Alexander Klabin’s Senator Investment Group also initiated a $912.2 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Kevin Michael Ulrich and Anthony Davis’s Anchorage Advisors, Catherine D. Wood’s ARK Investment Management, and Eli Casdin’s Casdin Capital.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings Inc. (NYSE:DNA) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE:RCL), Magna International Inc. (NYSE:MGA), CNH Industrial NV (NYSE:CNHI), Extra Space Storage, Inc. (NYSE:EXR), Northern Trust Corporation (NASDAQ:NTRS), XP Inc. (NASDAQ:XP), and Vulcan Materials Company (NYSE:VMC). All of these stocks’ market caps match DNA’s market cap.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
RCL 35 575404 -7
MGA 29 444703 -10
CNHI 25 909259 1
EXR 27 405036 6
NTRS 34 535076 2
XP 28 674196 3
VMC 43 1923351 0
Average 31.6 781004 -0.7

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 31.6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $781 million. That figure was $5696 million in DNA’s case. Vulcan Materials Company (NYSE:VMC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand CNH Industrial NV (NYSE:CNHI) is the least popular one with only 25 bullish hedge fund positions. Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings Inc. (NYSE:DNA) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for DNA is 41.1. 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 DNA wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on DNA were disappointed as the stock returned 2.4% 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.