Is VYGR A Good Stock To Buy Now?

We at Insider Monkey have gone over 817 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 Voyager Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VYGR) based on that data.

Is VYGR a good stock to buy now? Voyager Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VYGR) has seen a decrease in hedge fund interest recently. Voyager Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VYGR) was in 10 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistics is 21. Our calculations also showed that VYGR 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 financial world there are a large number of tools investors have at their disposal to grade stocks. A pair of the most under-the-radar tools are hedge fund and insider trading indicators. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can outperform the broader indices by a solid amount. Insider Monkey’s monthly stock picks returned 113% since March 2017 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 66 percentage points. Our short strategy outperformed the S&P 500 short ETFs by 20 percentage points annually (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

Now we’re going to go over the fresh hedge fund action regarding Voyager Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VYGR).

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

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2020, a total of 10 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of -29% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards VYGR over the last 21 quarters. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

Among these funds, Armistice Capital held the most valuable stake in Voyager Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VYGR), which was worth $28.8 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Citadel Investment Group which amassed $9 million worth of shares. Renaissance Technologies, GLG Partners, and PDT 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 Armistice Capital allocated the biggest weight to Voyager Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VYGR), around 1.05% of its 13F portfolio. Birchview Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.21 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to VYGR.

Due to the fact that Voyager Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VYGR) has faced falling interest from hedge fund managers, it’s easy to see that there were a few money managers who were dropping their positions entirely heading into Q4. Intriguingly, Eli Casdin’s Casdin Capital said goodbye to the biggest investment of the 750 funds monitored by Insider Monkey, totaling about $9.5 million in stock, and Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP was right behind this move, as the fund cut about $1.2 million worth. These bearish behaviors are interesting, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 4 funds heading into Q4.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Voyager Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VYGR). We will take a look at Jernigan Capital Inc (NYSE:JCAP), Prothena Corporation plc (NASDAQ:PRTA), Heritage Commerce Corp. (NASDAQ:HTBK), Donegal Group Inc (NASDAQ:DGICA), FRP Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:FRPH), Sterling Construction Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:STRL), and American Vanguard Corp. (NYSE:AVD). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble VYGR’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 12 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $51 million. That figure was $50 million in VYGR’s case. Prothena Corporation plc (NASDAQ:PRTA) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Donegal Group Inc (NASDAQ:DGICA) is the least popular one with only 7 bullish hedge fund positions. Voyager Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VYGR) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for VYGR is 24.7. 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 32.9% in 2020 through December 8th and surpassed the market again by 16.2 percentage points. Unfortunately VYGR wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); VYGR investors were disappointed as the stock returned -24.6% since the end of September (through 12/8) 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.