Should You Buy PAVmed Inc. (PAVM)?

In this article we will take a look at whether hedge funds think PAVmed Inc. (NASDAQ:PAVM) is a good investment right now. We check hedge fund and billionaire investor sentiment before delving into hours of research. Hedge funds spend millions of dollars on Ivy League graduates, unconventional data sources, expert networks, and get tips from investment bankers and industry insiders. Sure they sometimes fail miserably, but their consensus stock picks historically outperformed the market after adjusting for known risk factors.

PAVmed Inc. (NASDAQ:PAVM) was in 3 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2020. PAVM investors should be aware of an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds of late. There were 2 hedge funds in our database with PAVM positions at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that PAVM isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

In the eyes of most stock holders, hedge funds are assumed to be slow, outdated financial tools of years past. While there are over 8000 funds with their doors open at present, We look at the crème de la crème of this group, about 850 funds. These hedge fund managers have their hands on the lion’s share of the hedge fund industry’s total capital, and by watching their first-class picks, Insider Monkey has brought to light many investment strategies that have historically outstripped the market. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points a year since its inception in March 2017. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 36% since February 2017 (through May 18th) even though the market was up 30% during the same period. We just shared a list of 8 short targets in our latest quarterly update .

Wall Street Bull

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, legendary investor Bill Miller told investors to sell 7 extremely popular recession stocks last month. So, we went through his list and recommended another stock with 100% upside potential instead. We interview hedge fund managers and ask them about their best ideas. You can watch our latest hedge fund manager interview here and find out the name of the large-cap healthcare stock that Sio Capital’s Michael Castor expects to double. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. Our best call in 2020 was shorting the market when S&P 500 was trading at 3150 after realizing the coronavirus pandemic’s significance before most investors. Now we’re going to take a gander at the new hedge fund action regarding PAVmed Inc. (NASDAQ:PAVM).

How have hedgies been trading PAVmed Inc. (NASDAQ:PAVM)?

At Q1’s end, 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 2019. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards PAVM over the last 18 quarters. With hedge funds’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were adding to their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Sabby Capital, managed by Hal Mintz, holds the largest position in PAVmed Inc. (NASDAQ:PAVM). Sabby Capital has a $1 million position in the stock, comprising 0.4% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Levin Capital Strategies, managed by John A. Levin, which holds a $0.3 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining peers with similar optimism include John A. Levin’s Levin Capital Strategies, Bart Baum’s Ionic Capital Management and . In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Sabby Capital allocated the biggest weight to PAVmed Inc. (NASDAQ:PAVM), around 0.4% of its 13F portfolio. Ionic Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 0.06 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to PAVM.

Consequently, specific money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Ionic Capital Management, managed by Bart Baum, created the largest position in PAVmed Inc. (NASDAQ:PAVM). Ionic Capital Management had $0.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to PAVmed Inc. (NASDAQ:PAVM). We will take a look at Covia Holdings Corporation (NYSE:CVIA), Ashford Hospitality Trust, Inc. (NYSE:AHT), Eastman Kodak Co. (NYSE:KODK), and Limestone Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:LMST). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble PAVM’s market cap.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
CVIA 4 3421 -4
AHT 7 6489 -2
KODK 6 9987 -1
LMST 3 6198 -1
Average 5 6524 -2

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 5 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $7 million. That figure was $1 million in PAVM’s case. Ashford Hospitality Trust, Inc. (NYSE:AHT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Limestone Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:LMST) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks PAVmed Inc. (NASDAQ:PAVM) is even less popular than LMST. Our calculations showed that top 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.4% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10.1 percentage points. These stocks gained 7.9% in 2020 through May 22nd but managed to beat the market by 15.6 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on PAVM, though not to the same extent, as the stock returned 18.2% during the second quarter (through May 22nd) and outperformed the market as well.

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