Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Yunji Inc. (YJ)

We at Insider Monkey have gone over 817 13F filings that hedge funds and prominent investors are required to file by the SEC The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of September 30th. In this article, we look at what those funds think of Yunji Inc. (NASDAQ:YJ) based on that data.

Hedge fund interest in Yunji Inc. (NASDAQ:YJ) shares was flat at the end of last quarter. This is usually a negative indicator. Our calculations also showed that YJ isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks). 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 TFF Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:TFFP), Waterstone Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ:WSBF), and Duluth Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:DLTH) to gather more data points.

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

According to most investors, hedge funds are assumed to be underperforming, old financial tools of years past. While there are greater than 8000 funds in operation today, Our researchers choose to focus on the moguls of this group, about 850 funds. It is estimated that this group of investors administer most of all hedge funds’ total asset base, and by watching their inimitable equity investments, Insider Monkey has formulated several investment strategies that have historically defeated Mr. Market. Insider Monkey’s flagship short hedge fund strategy defeated the S&P 500 short ETFs by around 20 percentage points per year since its inception in March 2017. Our portfolio of short stocks lost 13% since February 2017 (through November 17th) even though the market was up 65% during the same period. We just shared a list of 6 short targets in our latest quarterly update .

Paul Marshall of Marshall Wace

At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 10 most profitable companies in the world to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our website. With all of this in mind let’s view the recent hedge fund action surrounding Yunji Inc. (NASDAQ:YJ).

How have hedgies been trading Yunji Inc. (NASDAQ:YJ)?

At Q3’s end, a total of 4 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 0% from the second quarter of 2020. On the other hand, there were a total of 3 hedge funds with a bullish position in YJ a year ago. So, let’s see which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

According to publicly available hedge fund and institutional investor holdings data compiled by Insider Monkey, Jonathan Guo’s Yiheng Capital has the biggest position in Yunji Inc. (NASDAQ:YJ), worth close to $1 million, accounting for 0.1% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Renaissance Technologies, holding a $0.3 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other hedge funds and institutional investors that hold long positions contain Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP and . In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Yiheng Capital allocated the biggest weight to Yunji Inc. (NASDAQ:YJ), around 0.06% of its 13F portfolio. Renaissance Technologies is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 0.0003 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to YJ.

Earlier we told you that the aggregate hedge fund interest in the stock was unchanged and we view this as a negative development. Even though there weren’t any hedge funds dumping their holdings during the third quarter, there weren’t any hedge funds initiating brand new positions. This indicates that hedge funds, at the very best, perceive this stock as dead money and they haven’t identified any viable catalysts that can attract investor attention.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Yunji Inc. (NASDAQ:YJ) but similarly valued. We will take a look at TFF Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:TFFP), Waterstone Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ:WSBF), Duluth Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:DLTH), Computer Programs & Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CPSI), Barrett Business Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:BBSI), Puma Biotechnology Inc (NASDAQ:PBYI), and Carriage Services, Inc. (NYSE:CSV). This group of stocks’ market caps resemble YJ’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 11.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $55 million. That figure was $1 million in YJ’s case. Puma Biotechnology Inc (NASDAQ:PBYI) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand TFF Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:TFFP) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Yunji Inc. (NASDAQ:YJ) is even less popular than TFFP. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for YJ is 25. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. Hedge funds clearly dropped the ball on YJ as the stock delivered strong returns, though hedge funds’ consensus picks still generated respectable returns. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.3% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10 percentage points. These stocks gained 30.7% in 2020 through November 27th and still beat the market by 16.1 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on YJ as the stock returned 107.1% since Q3 (through November 27th) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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