CorMedix Inc. (CRMD) Fell Out Of Favor With Hedge Funds

Many prominent investors, including Warren Buffett, David Tepper and Stan Druckenmiller, have been cautious regarding the current bull market and missed out as the stock market reached another high in recent weeks. On the other hand, technology hedge funds weren’t timid and registered double digit market beating gains. Financials, energy and industrial stocks initially suffered the most but many of these stocks delivered strong returns since November and hedge funds actually increased their positions in these stocks. In this article we will find out how hedge fund sentiment towards CorMedix Inc. (NASDAQ:CRMD) changed recently.

Is CorMedix Inc. (NASDAQ:CRMD) an attractive investment now? The smart money was turning less bullish. The number of bullish hedge fund positions decreased by 3 lately. CorMedix Inc. (NASDAQ:CRMD) was in 3 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 6. Our calculations also showed that CRMD isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings). There were 6 hedge funds in our database with CRMD holdings at the end of December.

According to most shareholders, hedge funds are assumed to be worthless, old financial vehicles of the past. While there are greater than 8000 funds trading today, Our experts look at the upper echelon of this club, about 850 funds. These investment experts command bulk of the hedge fund industry’s total capital, and by shadowing their finest picks, Insider Monkey has discovered a number of investment strategies that have historically outpaced the broader indices. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy outpaced the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points per annum since its inception in March 2017. Also, our monthly newsletter’s portfolio of long stock picks returned 206.8% since March 2017 (through May 2021) and beat the S&P 500 Index by more than 115 percentage points. You can download a sample issue of this newsletter on our website .

Paul Singer ELLIOTT MANAGEMENT

Paul Singer of Elliott Management

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, advertising technology one of the fastest growing industries right now, so we are checking out stock pitches like this under-the-radar adtech stock that can deliver 10x gains. We go through lists like the 10 best hydrogen fuel cell stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. 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 homepage. Now let’s check out the key hedge fund action regarding CorMedix Inc. (NASDAQ:CRMD).

Do Hedge Funds Think CRMD Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

Heading into the second quarter of 2021, a total of 3 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -50% from the fourth quarter of 2020. On the other hand, there were a total of 3 hedge funds with a bullish position in CRMD a year ago. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

Among these funds, Elliott Investment Management held the most valuable stake in CorMedix Inc. (NASDAQ:CRMD), which was worth $15.5 million at the end of the fourth quarter. On the second spot was Two Sigma Advisors which amassed $1.8 million worth of shares. 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 Elliott Investment Management allocated the biggest weight to CorMedix Inc. (NASDAQ:CRMD), around 0.12% of its 13F portfolio. Two Sigma Advisors is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 0.0049 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to CRMD.

Seeing as CorMedix Inc. (NASDAQ:CRMD) has experienced a decline in interest from hedge fund managers, logic holds that there is a sect of money managers that slashed their entire stakes in the first quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Renaissance Technologies dumped the largest investment of the “upper crust” of funds tracked by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $0.3 million in stock, and D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $0.3 million worth. These transactions are interesting, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 3 funds in the first quarter.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as CorMedix Inc. (NASDAQ:CRMD) but similarly valued. These stocks are The First Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:FNLC), Pure Cycle Corporation (NASDAQ:PCYO), Lifetime Brands Inc (NASDAQ:LCUT), Carrols Restaurant Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:TAST), PolyMet Mining Corp. (NYSE:PLM), Arbutus Biopharma Corp (NASDAQ:ABUS), and Centrus Energy Corp. (NYSE:LEU). This group of stocks’ market valuations match CRMD’s market valuation.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
FNLC 1 4384 0
PCYO 10 69664 1
LCUT 4 27149 -3
TAST 13 20322 1
PLM 6 2131 2
ABUS 15 20046 4
LEU 6 16375 2
Average 7.9 22867 1

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 7.9 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $23 million. That figure was $18 million in CRMD’s case. Arbutus Biopharma Corp (NASDAQ:ABUS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand The First Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:FNLC) is the least popular one with only 1 bullish hedge fund positions. CorMedix Inc. (NASDAQ:CRMD) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for CRMD is 24.1. 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. 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 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 17.2% in 2021 through June 11th and surpassed the market again by 3.3 percentage points. Unfortunately CRMD wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); CRMD investors were disappointed as the stock returned -17.6% since the end of March (through 6/11) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market in 2021.

Follow Cormedix Inc. (NYSEMKT:CRMD)

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