Hedge Funds Are Dumping ParkerVision, Inc. (PRKR)

Hedge funds and other investment firms run by legendary investors like Israel Englander and Ray Dalio are entrusted to manage billions of dollars of accredited investors’ money because they are without peer in the resources they use to identify the best investments for their chosen investment horizon. Moreover, they are more willing to invest a greater amount of their resources in small-cap stocks than big brokerage houses, and this is often where they generate their outperformance, which is why we pay particular attention to their best ideas in this space.

Is ParkerVision, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRKR) undervalued? Prominent investors are becoming less hopeful. The number of long hedge fund positions fell by 1 in recent months. 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 Evoke Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:EVOK), ImmuCell Corporation (NASDAQ:ICCC), and Swift Energy Company (NYSE:SFY) to gather more data points.

To the average investor, there is a multitude of tools that stock market investors employ to appraise their holdings. A couple of the most useful tools are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the best picks of the elite investment managers can outpace the market by a significant margin (see the details here).

Now, we’re going to analyze the key action regarding ParkerVision, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRKR).

How are hedge funds trading ParkerVision, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRKR)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 5 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a decrease of 17% from one quarter earlier. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Marc Lisker, Glenn Fuhrman and John Phelan’s MSDC Management has the biggest position in ParkerVision, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRKR), worth close to $0.4 million, amounting to less than 0.1%% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Israel Englander of Millennium Management, with a $0.1 million position; the fund has less than 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other members of the smart money with similar optimism consist of Joseph Mathias’s Concourse Capital Management, and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.

Judging by the fact that ParkerVision, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRKR) has experienced falling interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, it’s easy to see that there was a specific group of fund managers who sold off their positions entirely last quarter. Interestingly, Ben Levine, Andrew Manuel and Stefan Renold’s LMR Partners cut the largest position of the 700 funds tracked by Insider Monkey, valued at close to $0.1 million in stock, and D E Shaw was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $23,000 worth of shares. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest was cut by 1 fund last quarter.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as ParkerVision, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRKR) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Evoke Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:EVOK), ImmuCell Corporation (NASDAQ:ICCC), Swift Energy Company (NYSE:SFY), and Noranda Aluminum Holding Corporation (NYSE:NOR). This group of stocks’ market values is closest to ParkerVision, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRKR)’s market value.

As you can see, these stocks had an average of 6 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $2 million. That figure was $1 million in ParkerVision, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRKR)’s case. Among the stocks under consideration, Noranda Aluminum Holding Corporation (NYSE:NOR) ranks number one in terms of hedge fund popularity, whereas Evoke Pharma Inc (NASDAQ:EVOK) holds the last position. ParkerVision, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRKR) is not the least popular stock in this group, but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard Noranda Aluminum Holding Corporation (NYSE:NOR) might be a better candidate to consider a long position.