Should You Stay Away From FX Energy, Inc. (FXEN)?

Since FX Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:FXEN) has experienced declining sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, we can see that there is a sect of hedgies who were dropping their entire stakes in the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Ben Levine, Andrew Manuel and Stefan Renold’s LMR Partners sold off the largest stake of the “upper crust” of funds watched by Insider Monkey, valued at an estimated $46,000 in shares underlying call options, while Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group was right behind this move, as the fund said goodbye to about $38,000 worth of shares. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 1 fund in the third quarter.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as FX Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:FXEN) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Golden Star Resources Ltd. (USA) (NYSEMKT:GSS), Marrone Bio Innovations Inc (NASDAQ:MBII), Aptose Biosciences Inc (NASDAQ:APTO), and Cytori Therapeutics Inc. (USA) (NASDAQ:CYTX). This group of stocks’ market caps are closest to FXEN’s market cap.

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 $3 million. That figure was $2 million in FXEN’s case. Aptose Biosciences Inc (NASDAQ:APTO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Golden Star Resources Ltd. (USA) (NYSEMKT:GSS) is the least popular one with only 4 bullish hedge fund positions. FX Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:FXEN) 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 APTO might be a better candidate to consider a long position in.