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Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
ICON Public Limited Company (ICLR): Among Small-Cap Healthcare Stocks Hedge Funds Are Buying
We recently published a list of . In this article, we are going to take a look at where ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) stands against other small-cap healthcare stocks hedge funds are buying. The U.S. healthcare sector has performed better in 2025 compared to the broader market. After two years of weak performance, the healthcare sector kicked off on a strong note in 2025. In a letter from Federated Hermes, within the S&P 500, the healthcare sector soared nearly 2.59% as of April 30. Whereas the Information Technology sector reported an 11.24% loss, the Consumer Discretionary sector was down 14.08%, and the S&P 500 recorded a 4.92% decline as a whole. READ ALSO: Why These 15 Healthcare Stocks Are Surging in 2025 As inflation eases, things will be better economically for the healthcare sector. The Investment Director of Federated Hermes, Jordan Stuart, mentioned that when inflation has eased historically, healthcare stocks have performed better. Stuart added: 'Typically, healthcare stocks underperform when inflation is high due to increased costs and pricing pressures. However, inflation has, ever so slowly, begun to decline again, and optimism around rate cuts has resurfaced, giving life back to healthcare stocks. This shift in economic conditions will likely enhance the attractiveness of health care investments, as lower inflation and interest rates create a more favourable environment for growth and profitability.' According to BlackRock, an average of 75% of healthcare companies exceeded earnings expectations in the first three quarters of 2024. This led to an improved local investor sentiment, with nearly $80 million of inflows to the iShares Global Healthcare ETF (IXJ) in 2024. BlackRock expects the 2025 projected earnings in the healthcare sector to rebound even further, recording the highest year-over-year growth in 18 years, excluding the COVID-19 period. The U.S. healthcare sector now accounts for a fifth of the U.S. economy. With digital transformation, non-acute care shifts, and innovation in biosimilars and speciality drugs, the healthcare sector remains poised for growth in 2025. According to SNS Insider Research, the healthcare market is expected to reach $44.76 trillion in 2032 from $21.22 trillion reported in 2023. This marks a CAGR of 9.07% between 2024 and 2032. North America accounts for almost 44% of the global healthcare market share. Trump's tariffs remain a major hurdle for healthcare, and they may threaten around a 10-15% cost increase for drugs and medical devices, as per Forbes. According to the Medical Device Network, around 69% of the U.S.-marketed medical devices are manufactured outside of the U.S. David Risinger from Leerink Partners highlighted that potential tariffs would likely drive the U.S. drug prices, even though the companies moved their production to the U.S. Reducing costs with domestic production could take years, added Risinger. Reportedly, President Trump is expected to sign an executive order to slash U.S. prescription drug prices. The President plans to match drug prices overseas and control the price hike anticipated by analysts. Lately, the U.S. government has been striving to make trade deals with its partners. After talks between the U.S. and China, both countries have decided to slash tariffs for 90 days, with duties set to drop by 115 percentage points. This move will drop American tariffs on Chinese goods to as low as 30%, and China's retaliatory duties will go down from 125% to 10%. To compile the list of the 15 small-cap healthcare stocks hedge funds are buying, we used the Finviz screener to shortlist healthcare stocks that are trading at a market cap of at least $10 billion. For this article, we are defining small-cap stocks as those that trade between $10 billion and $20 billion. We have ranked the stocks in ascending order of the number of hedge fund holders. Data for the number of hedge fund investors for each stock was taken from Insider Monkey's database, updated as of Q4 2024. In cases where two or more stocks were held by an equal number of hedge funds, we used the upside potential as a tiebreaker. The analysts' upside potential data is taken from CNN. Please note that the data was collected on May 13, 2025. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds and billionaire investors pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here). A laboratory setting with a team of scientists working on a clinical trial. No. of Hedge Fund Holders: 46 Market Capitalization: $11.03 Billion Analyst Upside: 33.74% ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR), a Contract Research Organization (CRO), is a healthcare intelligence and clinical research firm. The company offers services to pharmaceutical companies that need to conduct clinical trials. Drug companies outsource ICON's services instead of conducting complex and costly processes in-house. ICON manages everything from patient recruitment to regulatory compliance. ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) recently posted its Q4 results with its adjusted earnings around $3.19, beating estimates by $0.10 per share. The revenue came in at $2 billion, slightly short of the consensus estimate and a year-over-year decline of 4.6%. The company experienced high levels of cancellations in Q1, impacting overall bookings. However, on the positive side, the company posted a better-than-expected adjusted EBITDA margin of 19.5%, indicating effective cost control and resource allocation. ICON saw a major increase in overall opportunities in the Biotech segment, with a modest win rate of closing projects. The company's shift towards increased R&D spending, AI-driven drug discovery, and global diversification of trials reflects a structural growth opportunity. During Q1, the company launched two new AI-enabled tools, iSubmit and SmartDraft. These AI tools will improve operational efficiencies and accelerate clinical trials. In Q1, the company repurchased shares worth $250 million, highlighting its commitment to returning capital to shareholders. Overall, ICLR ranks 14th on our list of small-cap healthcare stocks hedge funds are buying. While we acknowledge the potential of ICLR to grow, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that has gone up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks have lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than ICLR but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock. READ NEXT: and . Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at . Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
ICON Public Limited Company (ICLR): A Bull Case Theory
We came across a bullish thesis on ICON Public Limited Company (ICLR) on Substack by DeepValue Capital. In this article, we will summarize the bulls' thesis on ICLR. ICON Public Limited Company (ICLR)'s share was trading at $145 as of April 28th. ICLR's trailing and forward P/E were 15.22 and 10.20 respectively according to Yahoo Finance. A research scientist in a lab coat examining data on a computer screen demonstrating the trials and development of new drugs for CNS diseases. ICON, a Contract Research Organization (CRO), is a key player in the drug development process, offering services to pharmaceutical companies that need to conduct clinical trials. Instead of managing these complex and costly processes in-house, drug companies outsource them to firms like ICON, which handles everything from patient recruitment to regulatory compliance. ICON's role is integral to bringing new medicines to market, without owning the drugs themselves, but instead running the operations that make it all possible. This model aligns well with my investment strategy, as I focus on service businesses that offer scalability, recurring revenue, and strong returns on capital. The company's stock has seen a dramatic decline, down over 60% since July 2024, despite maintaining a robust backlog of $25 billion, which remains near all-time highs. Historically, ICON has achieved impressive returns on invested capital (ROIC) and returns on capital employed (ROCE) of around 15%. This decline in stock price presents an interesting opportunity, particularly when considering the growing long-term tailwinds in the pharmaceutical sector. With over $200 billion in annual drug revenue at risk due to a patent cliff by 2030, pharmaceutical companies are aggressively rebuilding their drug pipelines, which requires more clinical trials. Additionally, aging populations and the demand for chronic and complex treatments further drive this need for trials, making ICON's services more essential. Despite the recent downturn, the shift toward increased R&D spending, AI-driven drug discovery, and global diversification of trials point to a structural growth opportunity for ICON. The demand for clinical trials is set to continue expanding, and ICON doesn't rely on the success of any single drug; it simply needs more trials to be conducted, and all signs suggest this will be the case across the industry. However, there are still key risks and unknowns that need to be addressed. These include the validity of ICON's $25 billion backlog, executive incentive alignment, and whether ICON has a competitive advantage in a crowded field. Additionally, if AI disrupts core functions or if ICON falls behind competitors, there could be negative implications. While these risks are not immediate, they warrant careful consideration over the next five years.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Is ICON Public Limited (ICLR) One of the Oversold Global Stocks to Buy According to Hedge Funds?
We recently published a list of 11 Oversold Global Stocks to Buy According to Hedge Funds. In this article, we are going to take a look at where ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) stands against other oversold global stocks to buy according to hedge funds. Global stocks are businesses that have a diversified revenue base and do not rely entirely on one particular region or country. Their advantage is the ability to mitigate idiosyncratic risk, which arises from a specific country. Imagine a hypothetical scenario in which the US enters an economic recession that erodes consumer purchasing power, slows down industrial and manufacturing activity. The revenue growth and earnings of a US-based company will tank instantly, while a global stock will be able to compensate for the decline in the US business with growth in emerging or other developed markets. It therefore becomes obvious that global stocks are particularly attractive during times of heightened uncertainty when investors seek flight into safer assets. The calendar 2025 perfectly fits the description of a market that would favor global stocks. The situation becomes even more attractive as many of the safer global stocks became oversold due to the recent tariff turmoil, making them potentially more attractive from a valuation standpoint. At the same time, Yardeni Research data showed that the net earnings revision index has been in only mild negative territory in the last 2 quarters. What this means is that leading analysts have still not completely bought into the possibility that the US stock market will enter a recession in 2025. Let's dive deeper into economic indicators and see whether analysts are wrong, and the US market is indeed at the brink of a recession, which would favor global stocks if compared to the rest of the market. READ ALSO: First, we want to briefly touch on the tariff dilemma and emphasize that their danger is real and will likely have a significant negative impact on GDP growth and private spending. Our thesis is reinforced by the reputable J.P. Morgan bank – here's an excerpt from their recent publication: 'Facts continue to change — there is indication that the 'detox period' may be over and the latest messaging from the Trump Administration seems to be shifting from tariffs to tax cuts and deregulation. However, the damage to the business cycle still remains unclear. While tariff rates are expected to come down from current extreme levels, they are unlikely to be fully removed (China has been benefiting significantly from transshipment substitution). These are encouraging developments, but clarity and closure are still needed to solidify a more positive outlook and avoid further damage to the business cycle.' Second, recent batches of economic indicators are highly disappointing. After negative data from the Philadelphia Fed, the more recent Dallas Fed data shows that general business activity, new orders, employment, and outlook are all contracting. With such sharp deterioration in economic activity in large states, odds are that Q1 2025 GDP data will mark the first of two required quarters of negative growth to declare a recession. The slowing economy is indirectly confirmed by leading executives of shipping companies, such as America's supply chain management company's CEO claimed that in the three weeks since the tariffs took effect, ocean-container bookings from China to the US are down by more than 60 percent. Some economists warn that the consequences could be empty shelves in US stores, similar to the onset of the COVID pandemic, when markets tanked by more than 30%. Third, the consequences of lower shipments from China could be devastating for the US economy, given that hundreds of billions worth of goods flow through each year. The transportation sector already feels the consequences as one significant player lost a quarter of its value after reporting declining shipping volumes during its most recent earnings call. A prominent American capital market company recently reported that airfreight volumes from China have also stopped, as higher value-added products are seeing less importation. And the list goes on and on – countless industries are likely to be impacted by shortages of key supplies, or input prices that are too expensive to sustain production. We do not intend to make apocalyptic predictions for the US economy, and especially for the stock market. History shows that regardless of how deep a recession is, prices always recover quite quickly and reach new highs. The key takeaway for readers is that many economic indicators and indirect signals suggest that the US economy is in trouble, and the outlook is uncertain. In this case, a smart move would be to diversify away some of the US exposure by investing in oversold global stocks that have the potential to better hold their value during a potential bear market. A laboratory setting with a team of scientists working on a clinical trial. To compile our list of oversold global stocks, we used a screener to identify stocks with a Relative Strength Index (RSI) below 40. Then we manually identify the companies that drive at least 40% of their revenue from outside the US. Finally, we compared the list with Insider Monkey's proprietary database of hedge funds' ownership as of the fourth quarter of 2024 and included in the article the top 11 stocks with the largest number of hedge funds that own the stock, ranked in ascending order. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (). ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) is a global contract research organization that provides development and commercialization services to pharmaceutical companies. In other words, the company helps pharma companies save costs by outsourcing some parts of the lengthy and cumbersome drug development process. ICLR's competitive advantage consists of a large scale of operations in over 55 countries, and offering a wide range of services including clinical trial management, data analytics, regulatory consulting, and laboratory services. ICLR ranked sixth on our recent list of 11 Oversold Growth Stocks to Buy Now. ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) reported Q4 2024 results that met prior guidance, though revenue growth remained modest due to ongoing industry headwinds. The company continues to navigate a cautious biopharma funding environment, especially in biotech, where trial starts remain delayed. However, ICLR's bookings and backlog growth reflect improved award activity across strategic partnerships, particularly outside the top 20 pharma cohort. The company recorded $3.06 billion in gross bookings and a trailing 12-month book-to-bill of 1.2x, supported by new work in oncology and cardiometabolic diseases. Looking ahead, ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) reaffirmed its previous full-year 2025 guidance, citing visibility into mid-year acceleration as newer awards ramp up. Cost control remains a strong focus – management aims to exceed $100 million in savings through robotic process automation, while also executing global resource realignment to match demand. Margin pressure is expected in the short term due to an increase in pass-through revenue mix, but ICLR remains optimistic about its digital innovation strategy and the scalability of its functional service partnerships. Management sees the broader outsourcing market as resilient, despite current volatility, and continues to prioritize long-term growth and efficiency. With that being said, ICLR remains a reliable executor and one of the best oversold stocks to consider in anticipation of a potential reacceleration in the clinical research market. Overall, ICLR ranks 4th on our list of oversold global stocks to buy according to hedge funds. While we acknowledge the potential of ICLR as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than ICLR but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock. READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
27-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
ICON Public Limited Company (ICLR): Among the Oversold Growth Stocks to Buy Now
We recently published a list of 11 Oversold Growth Stocks to Buy Now. In this article, we are going to take a look at where ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) stands against other oversold growth stocks to buy now. The growth stocks, primarily proxied by high and consistent revenue growth, have shown sluggish performance in 2025 so far despite strong gains during the 2023-2024 period. The growth factor has been muted year-to-date due to the Trump-induced turmoil and uncertainty, favoring the safer value stocks instead. This has led to many growth stocks being oversold and trading at attractive valuations. Despite this, investors are still reluctant to buy because the overall market is still in 'fear' territory as proxied by the CNN Fear & Greed Index being at a relatively low value of 36/100. The key question to answer in this article is the following: Will the US stock market finally return to stability and growth? READ ALSO: 11 Oversold Blue Chip Stocks to Buy According to Hedge Funds We believe there are some strong indicators that support the hypothesis that the market has bottomed and the outlook will shift bullish very soon. First, the market tends to bottom when there is peak pessimism in the news and among retail investors – this has happened last week as the Fear & Greed Index was in Extreme Fear territory and some notorious news portals like The Economist have published extremely bearish first-page stories suggesting that the dollar might be on the verge of collapse and so might the US stock and bond markets along with the US economy. Mainstream news portals tend to be late to the party and only acknowledge market depression after they have happened. From a contrarian perspective, this would mean that peak pessimism was already priced in sometime at the beginning of the month, and things could only get better from here. Our hypothesis has already gotten some confirmation as the US stock market is up more than 5% since the beginning of the week, with the VIX index – a notorious proxy of investors volatility expectations – showing a score of 25, which is significantly below the peak of 60 around 'Liberation Day' early this month. The VIX index score is thus close to its long-term moving average, which stands in the high teens, indicating that the market's expectations are already normalizing. More certainty coming to the market is extremely bullish for stock prices and for the entire economy – it unmutes the Roaring 2020s economic tailwinds and gives clarity to CEOs and consumers to start spending again. Another important indicator suggesting a potential return to growth for the stock market is the high-yield corporate bond spread declining from 461bps a few weeks ago to 348bps, as per Yardeni Research. High-yield bonds are usually related to smaller, high-growth companies, which resonate well with the growth factor we discussed earlier in the article. Declining yields for corporate bonds reflect less expectation of default, which tends to happen in anticipation of economic expansions. Last but not least, the S&P index trades at a forward P/E of 19.5, which is significantly cheaper than the late 2024 peak of around 22.0. This means that there are more bargain prices to be found now than a few months ago, and if one expects the market to return to growth, then now is the best moment to find bargain deals. Many growth stocks are still in oversold territory from the effect of the tariff uncertainty, inflationary threats, and slowdowns across some industries. A laboratory setting with a team of scientists working on a clinical trial. To compile our list of oversold growth stocks, we used a screener to identify stocks with at least 20% revenue CAGR in the last 5 years, which are currently oversold by having an RSI below 40 and have significant average upside estimated by analysts. We rank them in descending order by the RSI value. For each stock, we also include the number of hedge funds that own the stock, as per Insider Monkey's database of Q4 2024. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (). ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) is a global contract research organization that provides development and commercialization services to pharmaceutical companies. In other words, the company helps pharma companies save costs by outsourcing some parts of the lengthy and cumbersome drug development process. ICLR's competitive advantage consists of a large scale of operations in over 55 countries, and offering a wide range of services including clinical trial management, data analytics, regulatory consulting, and laboratory services. ICLR ranked 8th on our recent list of 10 Best Beaten Down Stocks to Buy According to Analysts. ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR)'s latest reported Q4 2024 performance aligned with expectations, with revenue and adjusted EPS results coming at the midpoint of their previous guidance range. The company achieved full-year revenue growth of 2% and adjusted earnings per share growth of 9.5% in 2024. They demonstrated strong business development performance in Q4 with gross bookings of $3.06 billion, increasing 8% sequentially and 3% YoY, though this was partially offset by elevated cancellations totaling $651 million. The company's backlog grew to $24.7 billion at the end of 2024, representing an increase of 8.3% YoY. Looking ahead, ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) is navigating through a transition period with mixed market conditions, where they're seeing positive leading indicators alongside continuing cautiousness and volatility. The company is focusing on cost management and automation initiatives, which are expected to save over $100 million in total costs annually compared to what they would have been without these automations. Despite current market volatility, ICLR remains confident in its strategic position, particularly noting strength in its lab and early phase business, and continued growth in therapeutic areas such as cardiometabolic diseases and oncology. Management's confidence is further reinforced by a large estimated upside of 43.74% and 46 hedge funds owning the stock, making ICLR one of the oversold stocks to consider in 2025. Overall, ICLR ranks 6th on our list of oversold growth stocks to buy now. While we acknowledge the potential of ICLR to grow, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than ICLR but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock. READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
What Makes Icon PLC (ICLR) an Investment Bet?
GreensKeeper Asset Management, an investment management company, released its first quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. Markets had a difficult start to 2025; with high levels of volatility in all of the main indices. The Value Fund finished the first quarter +3.0% net of fees and expenses net of fees and expenses. For the first quarter, the S&P/TSX retuned +1.5%, the S&P500 -4.2% and the Nasdaq –10.2%. The markets fell around 10% this past week as a result of President Trump's April 2 "Liberation Day" tariff announcement. In addition, you can check the fund's top 5 holdings to determine its best picks for 2025. In its first quarter 2025 investor letter, GreensKeeper Asset Management emphasized stocks such as ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR). Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) is a clinical research organization. The one-month return of ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) was -13.11%, and its shares lost 50.23% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On April 9, 2025, ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) stock closed at $155.49 per share with a market capitalization of $12.567 billion. GreensKeeper Asset Management stated the following regarding ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) in its Q1 2025 investor letter: "We made one new purchase in the quarter: ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR). ICLR is a leading contract research organization (CRO) based in Ireland that manages clinical trials for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies worldwide. Despite some uncertainty driven by recent personnel changes at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), we believe that new drugs and medical devices will continue to be developed, and scientific progress will continue. New drugs require rigorous clinical testing before reaching the market. As a leading CRO, ICLR will capture its fair share of clinical trials once the dust settles." A laboratory setting with a team of scientists working on a clinical trial. ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 46 hedge fund portfolios held ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) at the end of the fourth quarter which was 48 in the previous quarter. ICON Public Limited Company's (NASDAQ:ICLR) fourth quarter revenue was $2.04 billion, represents a year-on-year decrease of 1.2%. While we acknowledge the potential of ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as NVIDIA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock. We covered ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) in another article, where we shared LVS Advisory's views on the company. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2025 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors. READ NEXT: Michael Burry Is Selling These Stocks and A New Dawn Is Coming to US Stocks. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
