Should You Avoid ZIOPHARM Oncology Inc. (ZIOP)?

Judging by the fact that ZIOPHARM Oncology Inc. (NASDAQ:ZIOP) has encountered bearish sentiment from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s easy to see that there exists a select few fund managers that decided to sell off their full holdings last quarter. Interestingly, Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management got rid of the largest investment of all the hedgies followed by Insider Monkey, valued at about $1 million in stock. Ken Griffin’s fund, Citadel Investment Group, also sold off its call options, about $0.3 million worth of.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to ZIOPHARM Oncology Inc. (NASDAQ:ZIOP). We will take a look at PBF Logistics LP (NYSE:PBFX), General Cable Corporation (NYSE:BGC), Chatham Lodging Trust (NYSE:CLDT), and WL Ross Holding Corp (NASDAQ:NXEO). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble ZIOP’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 14 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $97 million. That figure was $22 million in ZIOP’s case. WL Ross Holding Corp (NASDAQ:NXEO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand PBF Logistics LP (NYSE:PBFX) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. ZIOPHARM Oncology Inc. (NASDAQ:ZIOP) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard NXEO might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: none.