Is Navidea Biopharmaceuticals Inc (NYSE:NAVB) 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.
Navidea Biopharmaceuticals Inc (NYSE:NAVB) was in 3 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistics is 7. NAVB has seen an increase in hedge fund sentiment in recent months. There were 2 hedge funds in our database with NAVB positions at the end of the second quarter. Our calculations also showed that NAVB 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.
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 monthly stock picks returned 113% since March 2017 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 66 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.
David Siegel of Two Sigma Advisors
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. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our website.With all of this in mind we’re going to take a gander at the key hedge fund action regarding Navidea Biopharmaceuticals Inc (NYSE:NAVB).
How are hedge funds trading Navidea Biopharmaceuticals Inc (NYSE:NAVB)?
At the end of September, a total of 3 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 50% from one quarter earlier. On the other hand, there were a total of 1 hedge funds with a bullish position in NAVB a year ago. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
More specifically, Renaissance Technologies was the largest shareholder of Navidea Biopharmaceuticals Inc (NYSE:NAVB), with a stake worth $0.3 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Renaissance Technologies was Two Sigma Advisors, which amassed a stake valued at $0.1 million. Citadel Investment Group 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 Two Sigma Advisors allocated the biggest weight to Navidea Biopharmaceuticals Inc (NYSE:NAVB), around 0.0003% of its 13F portfolio. Renaissance Technologies is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.0003 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to NAVB.
Consequently, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Two Sigma Advisors, managed by John Overdeck and David Siegel, established the most valuable position in Navidea Biopharmaceuticals Inc (NYSE:NAVB). Two Sigma Advisors had $0.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter.
Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Navidea Biopharmaceuticals Inc (NYSE:NAVB). These stocks are Rhinebeck Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:RBKB), Oncolytics Biotech, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONCY), United Bancshares Inc. (NASDAQ:UBOH), Marker Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRKR), United-Guardian, Inc. (NASDAQ:UG), Manning and Napier Inc (NYSE:MN), and Synlogic, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYBX). This group of stocks’ market caps match NAVB’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| RBKB | 2 | 4432 | 0 |
| ONCY | 3 | 266 | 1 |
| UBOH | 1 | 6293 | 0 |
| MRKR | 2 | 414 | -1 |
| UG | 2 | 6313 | 0 |
| MN | 10 | 9218 | 0 |
| SYBX | 6 | 6157 | -4 |
| Average | 3.7 | 4728 | -0.6 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 3.7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $5 million. That figure was $0 million in NAVB’s case. Manning and Napier Inc (NYSE:MN) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand United Bancshares Inc. (NASDAQ:UBOH) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. Navidea Biopharmaceuticals Inc (NYSE:NAVB) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for NAVB is 30. 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 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 28.1% in 2020 through November 23rd and surpassed the market again by 15.4 percentage points. Unfortunately NAVB wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); NAVB investors were disappointed as the stock returned -12.6% since the end of September (through 11/23) 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 most of these stocks already outperformed the market in 2020.
Follow Navidea Biopharmaceuticals Inc. (NYSEMKT:NAVB)
Follow Navidea Biopharmaceuticals Inc. (NYSEMKT:NAVB)
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.