Is IVA A Good Stock To Buy Now?

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 Inventiva S.A. (NASDAQ:IVA).

Is IVA a good stock to buy now? Investors who are in the know were getting more bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund positions inched up by 8 lately. Inventiva S.A. (NASDAQ:IVA) was in 8 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. Our calculations also showed that IVA isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

In the eyes of most stock holders, hedge funds are viewed as worthless, outdated financial vehicles of the past. While there are greater than 8000 funds with their doors open at present, Our experts hone in on the elite of this group, about 850 funds. These hedge fund managers direct most of all hedge funds’ total capital, and by shadowing their best stock picks, Insider Monkey has spotted a few investment strategies that have historically outperformed the market. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy surpassed the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points per annum since its inception in March 2017. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 13% since February 2017 (through November 17th) even though the market was up 65% during the same period. We just shared a list of 6 short targets in our latest quarterly update .

At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 5 best cheap stocks to buy according to Ray Dalio to identify stocks with 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 view the fresh hedge fund action surrounding Inventiva S.A. (NASDAQ:IVA).

What does smart money think about Inventiva S.A. (NASDAQ:IVA)?

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2020, a total of 8 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 8 from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards IVA over the last 21 quarters. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

The largest stake in Inventiva S.A. (NASDAQ:IVA) was held by Great Point Partners, which reported holding $11.8 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Farallon Capital with a $6.2 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Antara Capital, Point72 Asset Management, and Alyeska Investment Group. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Great Point Partners allocated the biggest weight to Inventiva S.A. (NASDAQ:IVA), around 1.06% of its 13F portfolio. Antara Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 0.59 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to IVA.

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Great Point Partners, managed by Jeffrey Jay and David Kroin, established the most valuable position in Inventiva S.A. (NASDAQ:IVA). Great Point Partners had $11.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Farallon Capital also initiated a $6.2 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Himanshu Gulati’s Antara Capital, Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management, and Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Inventiva S.A. (NASDAQ:IVA) but similarly valued. These stocks are Ennis, Inc. (NYSE:EBF), Bank First National Corporation (NASDAQ:BFC), Digi International Inc. (NASDAQ:DGII), Boston Private Financial Hldg Inc (NASDAQ:BPFH), CrossFirst Bankshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:CFB), Boingo Wireless Inc (NASDAQ:WIFI), and Tricida, Inc. (NASDAQ:TCDA). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to IVA’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 11.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $68 million. That figure was $27 million in IVA’s case. Boston Private Financial Hldg Inc (NASDAQ:BPFH) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Bank First National Corporation (NASDAQ:BFC) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Inventiva S.A. (NASDAQ:IVA) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for IVA is 36.7. 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 negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.3% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10 percentage points. These stocks gained 31.6% in 2020 through December 2nd and surpassed the market again by 16 percentage points. Unfortunately IVA wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); IVA investors were disappointed as the stock returned 3.8% since the end of September (through 12/2) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market in 2020.

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