Is ASAN A Good Stock To Buy Now?

The latest 13F reporting period has come and gone, and Insider Monkey is again at the forefront when it comes to making use of this gold mine of data. We at Insider Monkey have plowed through 817 13F filings that hedge funds and well-known value investors are required to file by the SEC. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of September 30th, about a month before the elections. In this article we look at what those investors think of Asana Inc. (NYSE:ASAN).

Is Asana Inc. (NYSE:ASAN) a superb stock to buy now? Money managers were becoming more confident. The number of long hedge fund bets rose by 17 recently. Asana Inc. (NYSE:ASAN) was in 17 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. Our calculations also showed that ASAN 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).

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

In the 21st century investor’s toolkit there are a large number of metrics stock market investors can use to grade publicly traded companies. Two of the most under-the-radar metrics are hedge fund and insider trading moves. Our researchers have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the elite investment managers can outperform their index-focused peers by a solid margin (see the details here).

David Blood of Generation Investment Management

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 15 best blue chip stocks 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 we’re going to check out the latest hedge fund action surrounding Asana Inc. (NYSE:ASAN).

Do Hedge Funds Think ASAN Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At the end of September, a total of 17 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 17 from the second quarter of 2020. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards ASAN over the last 21 quarters. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

Among these funds, Generation Investment Management held the most valuable stake in Asana Inc. (NYSE:ASAN), which was worth $154.3 million at the end of the third quarter. On the second spot was Tiger Global Management LLC which amassed $26.7 million worth of shares. Millennium Management, Maplelane Capital, and Citadel Investment Group 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 Greenspring Associates allocated the biggest weight to Asana Inc. (NYSE:ASAN), around 3.92% of its 13F portfolio. Generation Investment Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 0.82 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to ASAN.

Consequently, specific money managers have been driving this bullishness. Generation Investment Management, managed by David Blood and Al Gore, created the most valuable position in Asana Inc. (NYSE:ASAN). Generation Investment Management had $154.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Chase Coleman’s Tiger Global Management LLC also initiated a $26.7 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new ASAN investors: Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, Leon Shaulov’s Maplelane Capital, and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.

Let’s also examine hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Asana Inc. (NYSE:ASAN). We will take a look at Signature Bank (NASDAQ:SBNY), Virtu Financial Inc (NASDAQ:VIRT), Haemonetics Corporation (NYSE:HAE), Change Healthcare Inc. (NASDAQ:CHNG), Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:ARWR), Douglas Emmett, Inc. (NYSE:DEI), and Schneider National, Inc. (NYSE:SNDR). This group of stocks’ market values match ASAN’s market value.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 29 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $505 million. That figure was $219 million in ASAN’s case. Change Healthcare Inc. (NASDAQ:CHNG) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Schneider National, Inc. (NYSE:SNDR) is the least popular one with only 15 bullish hedge fund positions. Asana Inc. (NYSE:ASAN) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for ASAN is 14.7. 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. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. 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 December 14th and surpassed the market again by 15.8 percentage points. Unfortunately ASAN wasn’t nearly as popular as these 20 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); ASAN investors were disappointed as the stock returned -2.4% since the end of September (through 12/14) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market in 2020.

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