Is PTC Therapeutics, Inc. (PTCT) a Good Stock to Buy?

There are several ways to beat the market, and investing in small cap stocks has historically been one of them. We like to improve the odds of beating the market further by examining what famous hedge fund operators such as Carl Icahn and George Soros think. Those hedge fund operators make billions of dollars each year by hiring the best and the brightest to do research on stocks, including small cap stocks that big brokerage houses simply don’t cover. Because of Carl Icahn and other successful funds’ exemplary historical records, we pay attention to their small cap picks. In this article, we use hedge fund filing data to analyze PTC Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:PTCT).

PTC Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:PTCT) saw an increase in enthusiasm from smart money recently. There were 15 funds in our database with long positions in PTCT at the end of September, compared to 15 funds a quarter earlier. At the end of this article we will also compare PTCT to other stocks including Agilysys, Inc. (NASDAQ:AGYS), Capital City Bank Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCBG), and Contango Oil & Gas Company (NYSEAMEX:MCF) to get a better sense of its popularity.

Follow Ptc Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:PTCT)

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With all of this in mind, let’s take a gander at the key action surrounding PTC Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:PTCT).

What have hedge funds been doing with PTC Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:PTCT)?

At Q3’s end, a total of 15 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, up by 15% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards PTCT over the last five quarters. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

HedgeFundSentimentChart

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Stephen DuBois’ Camber Capital Management has the biggest position in PTC Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:PTCT), worth close to $28 million, accounting for 1.2% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Jerome Pfund and Michael Sjostrom’s Sectoral Asset Management, which disclosed a $10.9 million position; 1.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining members of the smart money that are bullish comprise D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies, and Hal Mintz’s Sabby Capital. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.

As aggregate interest increased, key hedge funds were breaking ground themselves. Balyasny Asset Management, led by Dmitry Balyasny, created the largest position in PTC Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:PTCT). Balyasny Asset Management had $4.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Peter Muller’s PDT Partners also initiated a $2.3 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new PTCT investors: Louis Bacon’s Moore Global Investments and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as PTC Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:PTCT) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Agilysys, Inc. (NASDAQ:AGYS), Capital City Bank Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCBG), Contango Oil & Gas Company (NYSEAMEX:MCF), and Titan Machinery Inc. (NASDAQ:TITN). This group of stocks’ market valuations resemble PTCT’s market valuation.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
AGYS 8 110578 -1
CCBG 3 2909 0
MCF 12 62509 0
TITN 4 6661 -3

As you can see these stocks had an average of seven funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $46 million, compared to $82 million in PTCT’s case. Contango Oil & Gas Company (NYSEAMEX:MCF) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Capital City Bank Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCBG) is the least popular one with only three funds having reported long positions. Compared to these stocks PTC Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:PTCT) is more popular among hedge funds. Considering that hedge funds are fond of this stock in relation to its market cap peers, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and potentially include it in your portfolio.

Disclosure: none