How CytRx Corporation (CYTR) Stacks Up Against Its Peers

The Insider Monkey team has completed processing the quarterly 13F filings for the September quarter submitted by the hedge funds and other money managers included in our extensive database. Most hedge funds have been producing disappointing net returns in recent years, however that was partly due to the poor performance of small-cap stocks in general. Well, small-cap stocks finally turned the corner and have been beating the large-cap stocks by more than 10 percentage points over the last 5 months.This means the relevancy of hedge funds’ public filings became inarguable, as they may reveal numerous high-potential stocks. The following article will discuss the smart money sentiment towards CytRx Corporation (NASDAQ:CYTR).

CytRx Corporation (NASDAQ:CYTR) was in 7 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. CYTR shareholders have witnessed an increase in hedge fund sentiment in recent months. There were 6 hedge funds in our database with CYTR positions at the end of the previous quarter. The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as VAALCO Energy, Inc. (NYSE:EGY), Christopher & Banks Corporation (NYSE:CBK), and ParkerVision, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRKR) to gather more data points.

We follow over 700 hedge funds and other institutional investors and by analyzing their quarterly 13F filings, we identify stocks that they are collectively bullish on and develop investment strategies based on this data. One strategy that outperformed the market over the last year involves selecting the 100 best-performing funds and identifying the 30 mid-cap stocks that they are collectively most bullish on. Over the past year, this strategy generated returns of 18%, topping the 8% gain registered by S&P 500 ETFs. We launched this strategy 2.5 years ago and it returned more than 39% since then, vs. 22% gain registered by the S&P 500 ETFs.

What does the smart money think about CytRx Corporation (NASDAQ:CYTR)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 7 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, up by 17% from one quarter earlier. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards CYTR over the last 5 quarters. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists a few key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Hal Mintz’s Sabby Capital has the most valuable position in CytRx Corporation (NASDAQ:CYTR), worth close to $4.4 million. The second most bullish fund manager is Renaissance Technologies, one of the largest hedge funds in the world, holding a $0.4 million position. Remaining peers that hold long positions include Julian Baker and Felix Baker’s Baker Bros. Advisors, and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.

As industrywide interest jumped, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Sabby Capital, led by Hal Mintz, created the most outsized position in CytRx Corporation (NASDAQ:CYTR). Sabby Capital had $4.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to CytRx Corporation (NASDAQ:CYTR). These stocks are VAALCO Energy, Inc. (NYSE:EGY), Christopher & Banks Corporation (NYSE:CBK), ParkerVision, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRKR), and Palatin Technologies, Inc. (NYSEAMEX:PTN). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to CYTR’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $4 million. That figure was $6 million in CYTR’s case. VAALCO Energy, Inc. (NYSE:EGY) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand ParkerVision, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRKR) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. CytRx Corporation (NASDAQ:CYTR) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard EGY might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: None