Is Uniqure NV (QURE) A Good Stock To Buy?

Hedge Funds and other institutional investors have just completed filing their 13Fs with the Securities and Exchange Commission, revealing their equity portfolios as of the end of September. At Insider Monkey, we follow nearly 900 active hedge funds and notable investors and by analyzing their 13F filings, we can determine the stocks that they are collectively bullish on. One of their picks is Uniqure NV (NASDAQ:QURE), so let’s take a closer look at the sentiment that surrounds it in the current quarter.

Is QURE a good stock to buy? Uniqure NV (NASDAQ:QURE) shareholders have witnessed a decrease in hedge fund sentiment of late. Uniqure NV (NASDAQ:QURE) was in 22 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 49. There were 28 hedge funds in our database with QURE positions at the end of the second quarter. Our calculations also showed that QURE isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q2 rankings).

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. With all of this in mind let’s check out the recent hedge fund action regarding Uniqure NV (NASDAQ:QURE).

SAC CAPITAL ADVISORS

Steven Cohen of Point72 Asset Management

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

At third quarter’s end, a total of 22 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -21% from the second quarter of 2021. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in QURE over the last 25 quarters. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

More specifically, Nantahala Capital Management was the largest shareholder of Uniqure NV (NASDAQ:QURE), with a stake worth $67.4 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Nantahala Capital Management was Nantahala Capital Management, which amassed a stake valued at $56.3 million. Aquilo Capital Management, Point72 Asset Management, and 683 Capital Partners 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 Aquilo Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Uniqure NV (NASDAQ:QURE), around 7.67% of its 13F portfolio. Nantahala Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 2.12 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to QURE.

Since Uniqure NV (NASDAQ:QURE) has witnessed bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, logic holds that there was a specific group of funds that decided to sell off their entire stakes by the end of the third quarter. Interestingly, Mark Kingdon’s Kingdon Capital cut the largest stake of all the hedgies watched by Insider Monkey, valued at close to $6.2 million in stock. Himanshu Gulati’s fund, Antara Capital, also cut its stock, about $3.4 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as total hedge fund interest fell by 6 funds by the end of the third quarter.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Uniqure NV (NASDAQ:QURE) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Travere Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:TVTX), Prelude Therapeutics Incorporated (NASDAQ:PRLD), GrowGeneration Corp. (NASDAQ:GRWG), Day One Biopharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:DAWN), Kraton Corporation (NYSE:KRA), Malibu Boats Inc (NASDAQ:MBUU), and Redwood Trust, Inc. (NYSE:RWT). All of these stocks’ market caps are closest to QURE’s market cap.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
TVTX 25 568044 0
PRLD 7 851399 1
GRWG 13 32872 -4
DAWN 12 255180 12
KRA 25 265002 6
MBUU 21 125921 6
RWT 15 72958 3
Average 16.9 310197 3.4

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 16.9 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $310 million. That figure was $253 million in QURE’s case. Travere Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:TVTX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Prelude Therapeutics Incorporated (NASDAQ:PRLD) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Uniqure NV (NASDAQ:QURE) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for QURE is 54.1. 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 29.6% in 2021 and beat the market again by 3.6 percentage points. Unfortunately QURE wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on QURE were disappointed as the stock returned -35.2% since the end of September (through 12/31) 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.