Hedge Funds Cautiously Watching Pharmaceutical Corporation (NYMX)

We at Insider Monkey have gone over 821 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 March 31st, near the height of the coronavirus market crash. In this article, we look at what those funds think of Nymox Pharmaceutical Corporation (NASDAQ:NYMX) based on that data.

Hedge fund interest in Nymox Pharmaceutical Corporation (NASDAQ:NYMX) shares was flat at the end of last quarter. This is usually a negative indicator. At the end of this article we will also compare NYMX to other stocks including Misonix, Inc. (NASDAQ:MSON), Aspen Aerogels Inc (NYSE:ASPN), and MediciNova, Inc. (NASDAQ:MNOV) to get a better sense of its popularity.

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

So, why do we pay attention to hedge fund sentiment before making any investment decisions? Our research has shown that hedge funds’ small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 51 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that underperformed the market by 10 percentage points annually between 2006 and 2017. Interestingly the margin of underperformance of these stocks has been increasing in recent years. Investors who are long the market and short these stocks would have returned more than 27% annually between 2015 and 2017. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 in our quarterly newsletter. Even if you aren’t comfortable with shorting stocks, you should at least avoid initiating long positions in stocks that are in our short portfolio.

Ken Griffin of Citadel Investment Group

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, 2020’s unprecedented market conditions provide us with the highest number of trading opportunities in a decade. So we are checking out stocks recommended/scorned by legendary Bill Miller. We interview hedge fund managers and ask them about their best ideas. If you want to find out the best healthcare stock to buy right now, you can watch our latest hedge fund manager interview here. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. Our best call in 2020 was shorting the market when the S&P 500 was trading at 3150 after realizing the coronavirus pandemic’s significance before most investors. Keeping this in mind we’re going to check out the fresh hedge fund action encompassing Nymox Pharmaceutical Corporation (NASDAQ:NYMX).

How are hedge funds trading Nymox Pharmaceutical Corporation (NASDAQ:NYMX)?

At the end of the first quarter, a total of 5 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 0% from the previous quarter. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in NYMX over the last 18 quarters. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management has the largest position in Nymox Pharmaceutical Corporation (NASDAQ:NYMX), worth close to $0.9 million, corresponding to less than 0.1%% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Renaissance Technologies,  holding a $0.2 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other peers that hold long positions contain Michael Gelband’s ExodusPoint Capital, and Donald Sussman’s Paloma Partners. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position ExodusPoint Capital allocated the biggest weight to Nymox Pharmaceutical Corporation (NASDAQ:NYMX), around 0.01% of its 13F portfolio. Sciencast Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.01 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to NYMX.

Because Nymox Pharmaceutical Corporation (NASDAQ:NYMX) has experienced bearish sentiment from the smart money, it’s easy to see that there was a specific group of hedge funds that elected to cut their positions entirely heading into Q4. Interestingly, Ari Zweiman’s 683 Capital Partners sold off the largest position of the 750 funds watched by Insider Monkey, comprising about $0.2 million in stock, and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $0.1 million worth. These moves are interesting, as aggregate hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Nymox Pharmaceutical Corporation (NASDAQ:NYMX). We will take a look at Misonix, Inc. (NASDAQ:MSON), Aspen Aerogels Inc (NYSE:ASPN), MediciNova, Inc. (NASDAQ:MNOV), and Menlo Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:MNLO). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to NYMX’s market valuation.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 10.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $23 million. That figure was $1 million in NYMX’s case. Menlo Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:MNLO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand MediciNova, Inc. (NASDAQ:MNOV) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Nymox Pharmaceutical Corporation (NASDAQ:NYMX) is even less popular than MNOV. Hedge funds clearly dropped the ball on NYMX as the stock delivered strong returns, though hedge funds’ consensus picks still generated respectable returns. Our calculations showed that top 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.4% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10.1 percentage points. These stocks gained 8.3% in 2020 through the end of May and still beat the market by 13.2 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on NYMX as the stock returned 47.9% so far in the second quarter and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.