Is IsoRay, Inc. (NYSE:ISR) a good place to invest some of your money right now? We can gain invaluable insight to help us answer that question by studying the investment trends of top investors, who employ world-class Ivy League graduates, who are given immense resources and industry contacts to put their financial expertise to work. The top picks of these firms have historically outperformed the market when we account for known risk factors, making them very valuable investment ideas.
Is ISR a good stock to buy? IsoRay, Inc. (NYSE:ISR) investors should pay attention to an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds recently. IsoRay, Inc. (NYSE:ISR) was in 4 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic was previously 2. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. There were 2 hedge funds in our database with ISR holdings at the end of December. Our calculations also showed that ISR isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).
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John Overdeck of Two Sigma Advisors
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Do Hedge Funds Think ISR Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At the end of the first quarter, a total of 4 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 100% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, there were a total of 2 hedge funds with a bullish position in ISR a year ago. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).
When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Renaissance Technologies, holds the largest position in IsoRay, Inc. (NYSE:ISR). Renaissance Technologies has a $3.6 million position in the stock, comprising less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, which holds a $0.1 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining members of the smart money that hold long positions include John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors, Greg Eisner’s Engineers Gate Manager and . In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Renaissance Technologies allocated the biggest weight to IsoRay, Inc. (NYSE:ISR), around 0.0044% of its 13F portfolio. Engineers Gate Manager is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 0.0006 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to ISR.
As industrywide interest jumped, key money managers have jumped into IsoRay, Inc. (NYSE:ISR) headfirst. Two Sigma Advisors, managed by John Overdeck and David Siegel, initiated the most outsized position in IsoRay, Inc. (NYSE:ISR). Two Sigma Advisors had $0.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Greg Eisner’s Engineers Gate Manager also initiated a $0 million position during the quarter.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as IsoRay, Inc. (NYSE:ISR) but similarly valued. These stocks are LSB Industries, Inc. (NYSE:LXU), Galecto, Inc. (NASDAQ:GLTO), FNCB Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:FNCB), Eledon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ELDN), Sio Gene Therapies, Inc. (NASDAQ:SIOX), Plumas Bancorp (NASDAQ:PLBC), and BankFinancial Corporation (NASDAQ:BFIN). This group of stocks’ market valuations resemble ISR’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| LXU | 9 | 16337 | 2 |
| GLTO | 8 | 54845 | -1 |
| FNCB | 1 | 276 | 1 |
| ELDN | 13 | 65591 | 5 |
| SIOX | 15 | 44170 | 4 |
| PLBC | 2 | 6926 | 0 |
| BFIN | 4 | 11731 | 1 |
| Average | 7.4 | 28554 | 1.7 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 7.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $29 million. That figure was $4 million in ISR’s case. Sio Gene Therapies, Inc. (NASDAQ:SIOX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand FNCB Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:FNCB) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. IsoRay, Inc. (NYSE:ISR) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for ISR is 47.7. 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. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 17.2% in 2021 through June 11th and surpassed the market again by 3.3 percentage points. Unfortunately ISR wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); ISR investors were disappointed as the stock returned -20.2% since the end of March (through 6/11) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market in 2021.
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.