Is Oxford Immunotec Global PLC (OXFD) a Good Stock to Buy?

Legendary investors such as Leon Cooperman and Seth Klarman earn enormous amounts of money for themselves and their investors by doing in-depth research on small-cap stocks that big brokerage houses don’t publish. Small cap stocks -especially when they are screened well- can generate substantial outperformance versus a boring index fund. That’s why we analyze the activity of those successful funds in these small-cap stocks. In the following paragraphs, we analyze Oxford Immunotec Global PLC (NASDAQ:OXFD) from the perspective of those successful funds.

Is Oxford Immunotec Global PLC (NASDAQ:OXFD) undervalued? Investors who are in the know are definitely in an optimistic mood. The number of bullish hedge fund investments experienced an increase of 2 lately. In this way, there were 9 hedge funds in our database with OXFD 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 Community Healthcare Trust Inc (NYSE:CHCT), InVitae Corp (NYSE:NVTA), and First Connecticut Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:FBNK) to gather more data points.

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.

Hedge fund activity in Oxford Immunotec Global PLC (NASDAQ:OXFD)

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 9 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, an increase of 29% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards OXFD over the last 5 quarters. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Brian Ashford-Russell and Tim Woolley’s Polar Capital has the biggest position in Oxford Immunotec Global PLC (NASDAQ:OXFD), worth close to $18.8 million. Coming in second is Redmile Group, led by Jeremy Green, which holds a $18 million position; 1.4% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining members of the smart money with similar optimism encompass Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group, James E. Flynn’s Deerfield Management and Renaissance Technologies, one of the biggest hedge funds in the world. 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 money managers were breaking ground themselves. Endurant Capital Management, led by Vishal Saluja and Pham Quang, assembled the most valuable position in Oxford Immunotec Global PLC (NASDAQ:OXFD). Endurant Capital Management had $1.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Philip Hempleman’s Ardsley Partners also initiated a $0.5 million position during the quarter.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Oxford Immunotec Global PLC (NASDAQ:OXFD) but similarly valued. These stocks are Community Healthcare Trust Inc (NYSE:CHCT), InVitae Corp (NYSE:NVTA), First Connecticut Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:FBNK), and Gafisa SA (ADR) (NYSE:GFA). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to OXFD’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $38 million. That figure was $59 million in OXFD’s case. Community Healthcare Trust Inc (NYSE:CHCT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Gafisa SA (ADR) (NYSE:GFA) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. Oxford Immunotec Global PLC (NASDAQ:OXFD) 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 CHCT might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: None