Is Cocrystal Pharma, Inc. (COCP) A Good Stock To Buy?

In this article we will take a look at whether hedge funds think Cocrystal Pharma, Inc. (NASDAQ:COCP) is a good investment right now. We check hedge fund and billionaire investor sentiment before delving into hours of research. Hedge funds spend millions of dollars on Ivy League graduates, unconventional data sources, expert networks, and get tips from investment bankers and industry insiders. Sure they sometimes fail miserably, but their consensus stock picks historically outperformed the market after adjusting for known risk factors.

Cocrystal Pharma, Inc. (NASDAQ:COCP) was in 4 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2020. The all time high for this statistics is 3. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. COCP has experienced an increase in hedge fund interest recently. There were 1 hedge funds in our database with COCP holdings at the end of June. Our calculations also showed that COCP isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).

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

Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research was able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 66 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’ll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 13% through November 17th. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 10 most profitable companies in the world to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. Keeping this in mind let’s take a gander at the recent hedge fund action regarding Cocrystal Pharma, Inc. (NASDAQ:COCP).

Hedge fund activity in Cocrystal Pharma, Inc. (NASDAQ:COCP)

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2020, a total of 4 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 300% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 2 hedge funds with a bullish position in COCP a year ago. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were adding to their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Renaissance Technologies,  holds the largest position in Cocrystal Pharma, Inc. (NASDAQ:COCP). Renaissance Technologies has a $3.6 million position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Point72 Asset Management, managed by Steve Cohen, which holds a $2.7 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Some other professional money managers that are bullish comprise Hal Mintz’s Sabby Capital, John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors and . In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Sabby Capital allocated the biggest weight to Cocrystal Pharma, Inc. (NASDAQ:COCP), around 0.37% of its 13F portfolio. Point72 Asset Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 0.01 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to COCP.

Consequently, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Point72 Asset Management, managed by Steve Cohen, established the most valuable position in Cocrystal Pharma, Inc. (NASDAQ:COCP). Point72 Asset Management had $2.7 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Hal Mintz’s Sabby Capital also initiated a $2.5 million position during the quarter. The only other fund with a new position in the stock is John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Cocrystal Pharma, Inc. (NASDAQ:COCP) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Blueknight Energy Partners L.P. (NASDAQ:BKEP), Aridis Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:ARDS), Daxor Corporation (NYSE:DXR), OFS Capital Corp (NASDAQ:OFS), Aerpio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARPO), Marathon Patent Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:MARA), and Curis, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRIS). This group of stocks’ market valuations match COCP’s market valuation.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 4.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $6 million. That figure was $9 million in COCP’s case. Curis, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRIS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Aridis Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:ARDS) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Cocrystal Pharma, Inc. (NASDAQ:COCP) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for COCP is 54.7. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.3% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10 percentage points. These stocks gained 30.7% in 2020 through November 27th and still beat the market by 16.1 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on COCP as the stock returned 103.2% since the end of the third quarter (through 11/27) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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