We can judge whether Upland Software Inc (NASDAQ:UPLD) is a good investment right now by following the lead of some of the best investors in the world and piggybacking their ideas. There’s no better way to get these firms’ immense resources and analytical capabilities working for us than to follow their lead into their best ideas. While not all of these picks will be winners, our research shows that these picks historically outperformed the market when we factor in known risk factors.
Upland Software Inc (NASDAQ:UPLD) investors should be aware of an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds of late. UPLD was in 26 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 24 hedge funds in our database with UPLD positions at the end of the previous quarter. Our calculations also showed that UPLD isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video below for Q2 rankings).
Video: Click the image to watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.
At the moment there are a large number of gauges investors employ to grade publicly traded companies. A duo of the most useful gauges are hedge fund and insider trading sentiment. We have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best hedge fund managers can beat the broader indices by a significant amount (see the details here).
David Atterbury of Whetstone Capital
Unlike the largest US hedge funds that are convinced Dow will soar past 40,000 or the world’s most bearish hedge fund that’s more convinced than ever that a crash is coming, our long-short investment strategy doesn’t rely on bull or bear markets to deliver double digit returns. We only rely on the best performing hedge funds‘ buy/sell signals. Let’s check out the fresh hedge fund action encompassing Upland Software Inc (NASDAQ:UPLD).
What have hedge funds been doing with Upland Software Inc (NASDAQ:UPLD)?
At Q3’s end, a total of 26 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 8% from the second quarter of 2019. On the other hand, there were a total of 20 hedge funds with a bullish position in UPLD a year ago. With the smart money’s sentiment swirling, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were adding to their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).
More specifically, Portolan Capital Management was the largest shareholder of Upland Software Inc (NASDAQ:UPLD), with a stake worth $42.1 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Portolan Capital Management was General Equity Partners, which amassed a stake valued at $20.4 million. G2 Investment Partners Management, Whetstone Capital Advisors, and Dorset Management were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position General Equity Partners allocated the biggest weight to Upland Software Inc (NASDAQ:UPLD), around 16.31% of its portfolio. Dorset Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 6.42 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to UPLD.
Consequently, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. Park West Asset Management, managed by Peter S. Park, created the biggest position in Upland Software Inc (NASDAQ:UPLD). Park West Asset Management had $1.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace also made a $1.2 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new UPLD investors: Donald Sussman’s Paloma Partners, Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, and Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Upland Software Inc (NASDAQ:UPLD) but similarly valued. These stocks are TherapeuticsMD Inc (NASDAQ:TXMD), Signet Jewelers Limited (NYSE:SIG), DHT Holdings Inc (NYSE:DHT), and Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corp. (NYSE:AGM). This group of stocks’ market caps match UPLD’s market cap.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| TXMD | 8 | 28322 | 0 |
| SIG | 14 | 135975 | -3 |
| DHT | 23 | 128089 | 7 |
| AGM | 10 | 32857 | 3 |
| Average | 13.75 | 81311 | 1.75 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 13.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $81 million. That figure was $186 million in UPLD’s case. DHT Holdings Inc (NYSE:DHT) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand TherapeuticsMD Inc (NASDAQ:TXMD) is the least popular one with only 8 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Upland Software Inc (NASDAQ:UPLD) is more popular among hedge funds. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 37.4% in 2019 through the end of November and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 9.9 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on UPLD as the stock returned 11% during the first two months of Q4 and outperformed the market by an even larger margin. Hedge funds were clearly right about piling into this stock relative to other stocks with similar market capitalizations.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
