Is Oncolytics Biotech, Inc. (ONCY) A Good Stock To Buy?

The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. Insider Monkey finished processing 817 13F filings submitted by hedge funds and prominent investors. These filings show these funds’ portfolio positions as of September 30th, 2020. What do these smart investors think about Oncolytics Biotech, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONCY)?

Is Oncolytics Biotech, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONCY) a bargain? Prominent investors were becoming hopeful. The number of bullish hedge fund bets improved by 1 recently. Oncolytics Biotech, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONCY) was in 3 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2020. The all time high for this statistics is 2. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. Our calculations also showed that ONCY 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 let’s analyze the fresh hedge fund action regarding Oncolytics Biotech, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONCY).

How are hedge funds trading Oncolytics Biotech, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONCY)?

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2020, a total of 3 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 50% from the previous quarter. By comparison, 2 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in ONCY a year ago. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

More specifically, Two Sigma Advisors was the largest shareholder of Oncolytics Biotech, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONCY), with a stake worth $0.2 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Two Sigma Advisors was Citadel Investment Group, which amassed a stake valued at $0 million. 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 Two Sigma Advisors allocated the biggest weight to Oncolytics Biotech, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONCY), around 0.0006% of its 13F portfolio. Renaissance Technologies is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to ONCY.

As industrywide interest jumped, key money managers have jumped into Oncolytics Biotech, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONCY) headfirst. Renaissance Technologies, established the most valuable position in Oncolytics Biotech, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONCY). Renaissance Technologies had $0 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Oncolytics Biotech, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONCY) but similarly valued. We will take a look at United Bancshares Inc. (NASDAQ:UBOH), Marker Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRKR), United-Guardian, Inc. (NASDAQ:UG), Manning and Napier Inc (NYSE:MN), Synlogic, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYBX), Infinity Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:INFI), and Cinedigm Corp (NASDAQ:CIDM). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble ONCY’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 4.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $8 million. That figure was $0 million in ONCY’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. Oncolytics Biotech, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONCY) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for ONCY is 47.1. 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 28.1% in 2020 through November 23rd and still beat the market by 15.4 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on ONCY as the stock returned 55.6% since the end of the third quarter (through 11/23) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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