Should You Avoid GTx, Inc. (GTXI)?

Is GTx, Inc. (NASDAQ:GTXI) a superb investment right now? Investors who are in the know are taking a pessimistic view. The number of bullish hedge fund bets stayed the same which is a slightly negative development in our experience

According to most market participants, hedge funds are assumed to be underperforming, outdated investment tools of yesteryear. While there are over 8000 funds in operation today, we at Insider Monkey choose to focus on the aristocrats of this group, around 450 funds. It is estimated that this group controls the majority of the smart money’s total asset base, and by watching their highest performing picks, we have brought to light a number of investment strategies that have historically beaten Mr. Market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy beat the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per annum for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve began to sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have outperformed the S&P 500 index by 23.3 percentage points in 8 months (see the details here).

Equally as integral, bullish insider trading activity is a second way to parse down the investments you’re interested in. There are lots of reasons for an executive to downsize shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would initiate a purchase. Various empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this strategy if shareholders know where to look (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, we’re going to take a peek at the key action regarding GTx, Inc. (NASDAQ:GTXI).

What have hedge funds been doing with GTx, Inc. (NASDAQ:GTXI)?

At Q1’s end, a total of 4 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 0% from the first quarter. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings considerably.

When looking at the hedgies we track, Jacob Gottlieb’s Visium Asset Management had the biggest position in GTx, Inc. (NASDAQ:GTXI), worth close to $9.7 million, comprising 0.3% of its total 13F portfolio. On Visium Asset Management’s heels is D E Shaw, managed by D. E. Shaw, which held a $3.4 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Other hedge funds that are bullish include Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.

Since GTx, Inc. (NASDAQ:GTXI) has experienced bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, we can see that there was a specific group of hedge funds that elected to cut their entire stakes at the end of the first quarter. At the top of the heap, Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management dropped the largest investment of the “upper crust” of funds we track, worth an estimated $0.1 million in stock. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

What have insiders been doing with GTx, Inc. (NASDAQ:GTXI)?

Insider buying is particularly usable when the company in question has experienced transactions within the past six months. Over the latest half-year time frame, GTx, Inc. (NASDAQ:GTXI) has seen zero unique insiders purchasing, and 1 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s check out hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to GTx, Inc. (NASDAQ:GTXI). These stocks are Progenics Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:PGNX), Coronado Biosciences Inc (NASDAQ:CNDO), Curis, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRIS), Oncolytics Biotech, Inc. (USA) (NASDAQ:ONCY), and Threshold Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:THLD). This group of stocks are in the biotechnology industry and their market caps match GTXI’s market cap.

With the results shown by our strategies, everyday investors should always pay attention to hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and GTx, Inc. (NASDAQ:GTXI) shareholders fit into this picture quite nicely.

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