Is Foamix Pharmaceuticals Ltd (FOMX) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds?

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 Foamix Pharmaceuticals Ltd (NASDAQ:FOMX).

Foamix Pharmaceuticals Ltd (NASDAQ:FOMX) shareholders have witnessed an increase in enthusiasm from smart money recently. FOMX was in 18 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 17 hedge funds in our database with FOMX positions at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare FOMX to other stocks including PHI Inc. (NASDAQ:PHIIK), Zogenix, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZGNX), and Hooker Furniture Corporation (NASDAQ:HOFT) to get a better sense of its popularity.

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

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What have hedge funds been doing with Foamix Pharmaceuticals Ltd (NASDAQ:FOMX)?

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 18 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, an increase of 6% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards FOMX over the last 5 quarters. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

HedgeFundSentimentChart

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Jeffrey Jay and David Kroin’s Great Point Partners has the biggest position in Foamix Pharmaceuticals Ltd (NASDAQ:FOMX), worth close to $25.6 million, corresponding to 6.5% of its total 13F portfolio. Coming in second is Baker Bros. Advisors, led by Julian Baker and Felix Baker, holding a $22.8 million position. Other hedge funds and institutional investors with similar optimism comprise Joseph Edelman’s Perceptive Advisors, and James E. Flynn’s Deerfield Management. 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.

Consequently, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. RA Capital Management, led by Peter Kolchinsky, established the biggest position in Foamix Pharmaceuticals Ltd (NASDAQ:FOMX). RA Capital Management had $16.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Greenberg and David Kim’s Ghost Tree Capital also made a $1.5 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new FOMX positions are Hal Mintz’s Sabby Capital, Mike Vranos’ Ellington, and Paul Tudor Jones’ Tudor Investment Corp.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Foamix Pharmaceuticals Ltd (NASDAQ:FOMX). We will take a look at PHI Inc. (NASDAQ:PHIIK), Zogenix, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZGNX), Hooker Furniture Corporation (NASDAQ:HOFT), and Oxford Immunotec Global PLC (NASDAQ:OXFD). All of these stocks’ market caps match FOMX’s market cap.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
PHIIK 9 76716 0
ZGNX 18 102468 5
HOFT 10 67517 0
OXFD 9 58923 2

As you can see these stocks had an average of 12 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $76 million. That figure was $124 million in FOMX’s case. Zogenix, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZGNX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand PHI Inc. (NASDAQ:PHIIK) is the least popular one with only 9 bullish hedge fund positions. Foamix Pharmaceuticals Ltd (NASDAQ:FOMX) 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 ZGNX might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: None