The Insider Monkey team has completed processing the quarterly 13F filings for the September quarter submitted by the hedge funds and other money managers included in our extensive database. Most hedge fund investors experienced strong gains on the back of a strong market performance, which certainly propelled them to adjust their equity holdings so as to maintain the desired risk profile. As a result, the relevancy of these public filings and their content is indisputable, as they may reveal numerous high-potential stocks. The following article will discuss the smart money sentiment towards Celsion Corporation (NASDAQ:CLSN).
Is Celsion Corporation (NASDAQ:CLSN) undervalued? Investors who are in the know are getting more bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund bets increased by 1 in recent months. Our calculations also showed that CLSN isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video below for Q2 rankings).
Video: Click the image to 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 flagship best performing hedge funds strategy returned 91% since May 2014 and outperformed the Russell 2000 ETFs by nearly 40 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.
Ken Griffin of Citadel Investment Group
We leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example Discover is offering this insane cashback card, so we look into shorting the stock. One of the most bullish analysts in America just put his money where his mouth is. He says, “I’m investing more today than I did back in early 2009.” So we check out his pitch. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. We even check out this option genius’ weekly trade ideas. This December, we recommended Adams Energy as a one-way bet based on an under-the-radar fund manager’s investor letter and the stock already gained 20 percent. With all of this in mind we’re going to take a gander at the latest hedge fund action surrounding Celsion Corporation (NASDAQ:CLSN).
Hedge fund activity in Celsion Corporation (NASDAQ:CLSN)
At the end of the third quarter, a total of 3 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 50% from the previous quarter. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in CLSN over the last 17 quarters. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
Among these funds, Sabby Capital held the most valuable stake in Celsion Corporation (NASDAQ:CLSN), which was worth $0.2 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Citadel Investment Group which amassed $0.1 million worth of shares. Renaissance Technologies was 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 Sabby Capital allocated the biggest weight to Celsion Corporation (NASDAQ:CLSN), around 0.13% of its 13F portfolio. Citadel Investment Group is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to CLSN.
As one would reasonably expect, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. Renaissance Technologies created the most valuable position in Celsion Corporation (NASDAQ:CLSN). Renaissance Technologies had $0 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group also initiated a $0 million position during the quarter.
Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Celsion Corporation (NASDAQ:CLSN). These stocks are FSB Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSBC), Bellerophon Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLPH), Data I/O Corporation (NASDAQ:DAIO), and Jewett-Cameron Trading Company Ltd. (NASDAQ:JCTCF). This group of stocks’ market values resemble CLSN’s market value.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| FSBC | 4 | 5687 | 0 |
| BLPH | 5 | 5236 | 0 |
| DAIO | 1 | 2566 | -1 |
| JCTCF | 1 | 1536 | 0 |
| Average | 2.75 | 3756 | -0.25 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 2.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $4 million. That figure was $0 million in CLSN’s case. Bellerophon Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLPH) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Data I/O Corporation (NASDAQ:DAIO) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Celsion Corporation (NASDAQ:CLSN) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but 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 37.4% in 2019 through the end of November and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 9.9 percentage points. Unfortunately CLSN wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on CLSN were disappointed as the stock returned -14.3% during the fourth quarter (through the end of November) 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 many of these stocks already outperformed the market so far this year.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
