Before we spend countless hours researching a company, we'd like to analyze what insiders, hedge funds and billionaire investors think of the stock first. We would like to do so because our research has shown that the elite investors' consensus returns have been exceptional. In the following paragraphs, we find out what the billionaire investors and hedge funds think of Fluidigm Corporation (NASDAQ:FLDM).
Is Fluidigm Corporation (NASDAQ:FLDM) a bargain? The smart money is betting on the stock. The number of bullish hedge fund positions rose by 7 recently. Our calculations also showed that FLDM isn't among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.
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 flagship best performing hedge funds strategy returned 20.7% year to date (through March 12th) and outperformed the market even though it draws its stock picks among small-cap stocks. This strategy also outperformed the market by 32 percentage points since its inception (see the details here). That's why we believe hedge fund sentiment is a useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.
We're going to take a glance at the latest hedge fund action encompassing Fluidigm Corporation (NASDAQ:FLDM).
What does the smart money think about Fluidigm Corporation (NASDAQ:FLDM)?
At Q4's end, a total of 19 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 58% from one quarter earlier. By comparison, 9 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in FLDM a year ago. With the smart money's positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were adding to their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Levin Capital Strategies, managed by John A. Levin, holds the number one position in Fluidigm Corporation (NASDAQ:FLDM). Levin Capital Strategies has a $82.5 million position in the stock, comprising 1.8% of its 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Driehaus Capital, managed by Richard Driehaus, which holds a $19.9 million position; 0.9% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other professional money managers that hold long positions contain Jim Simons's Renaissance Technologies, Israel Englander's Millennium Management and Efrem Kamen's Pura Vida Investments.