The 700+ hedge funds and money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the third quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of September 30. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund positions. Our extensive review of these public filings is finally over, so this article is set to reveal the smart money sentiment towards AcelRx Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ACRX).
Is AcelRx Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ACRX) a good investment today? Hedge funds think not, as they’re in a pessimistic mood. The number of long hedge fund positions that are disclosed in regulatory 13F filings dropped by 3 lately. At the end of this article we will also compare ACRX to other stocks including Westport Innovations Inc. (USA) (NASDAQ:WPRT), T2 Biosystems Inc (NASDAQ:TTOO), and Southern First Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:SFST) to get a better sense of its popularity.
At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.
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How are hedge funds trading AcelRx Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ACRX)?
At the end of the third quarter, a total of 6 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a 33% decline from the second quarter of 2016. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards ACRX over the last 5 quarters, which has steadily declined in 2016. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Joseph Edelman’s Perceptive Advisors has the largest position in AcelRx Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ACRX), worth close to $21 million, comprising 1.4% of its total 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is William Leland Edwards’ Palo Alto Investors, holding a $6.4 million position. Remaining professional money managers that hold long positions comprise D E Shaw, one of the biggest hedge funds in the world, Gregory Fraser, Rudolph Kluiber, and Timothy Krochuk’s GRT Capital Partners, and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management. We should note that GRT Capital Partners is among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds, which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-micro-cap stocks.
Because AcelRx Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ACRX) has witnessed a decline in interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s easy to see that there were a few hedgies that decided to sell off their full holdings by the end of the third quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Peter Muller’s PDT Partners sold off the biggest investment of the 700 funds watched by Insider Monkey, comprising close to $0.1 million in stock. Jim Simons’ fund, Renaissance Technologies, also dropped its stock, about $0.1 million worth.
Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to AcelRx Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ACRX). These stocks are Westport Innovations Inc. (USA) (NASDAQ:WPRT), T2 Biosystems Inc (NASDAQ:TTOO), Southern First Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:SFST), and First Northwest BanCorp (NASDAQ:FNWB). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble ACRX’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| WPRT | 6 | 8301 | -1 |
| TTOO | 6 | 49795 | 1 |
| SFST | 6 | 22351 | 0 |
| FNWB | 4 | 14324 | -1 |
As you can see these stocks had an average of 5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $24 million. That figure was $29 million in ACRX’s case. Westport Innovations Inc. (USA) (NASDAQ:WPRT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand First Northwest BanCorp (NASDAQ:FNWB) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. AcelRx Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ACRX) is tied as the most popular stock in this group. This is a slightly positive signal, but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are buying recently. In this regard TTOO might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.
Disclosure: None
