Is UP Fintech Holding Limited (TIGR) A Good Stock To Buy?

In this article we will take a look at whether hedge funds think UP Fintech Holding Limited (NASDAQ:TIGR) is a good investment right now. We check hedge fund and billionaire investor sentiment before delving into hours of research. Hedge funds spend millions of dollars on Ivy League graduates, unconventional data sources, expert networks, and get tips from investment bankers and industry insiders. Sure they sometimes fail miserably, but their consensus stock picks historically outperformed the market after adjusting for known risk factors.

UP Fintech Holding Limited (NASDAQ:TIGR) has experienced an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers recently. UP Fintech Holding Limited (NASDAQ:TIGR) was in 6 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2020. The all time high for this statistics is 9. There were 4 hedge funds in our database with TIGR holdings at the end of June. Our calculations also showed that TIGR 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.

Hedge funds’ reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Our research has shown that hedge funds’ small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by 66 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that underperformed the market by 10 percentage points annually between 2006 and 2017. Interestingly the margin of underperformance of these stocks has been increasing in recent years. Investors who are long the market and short these stocks would have returned more than 27% annually between 2015 and 2017. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 in our quarterly newsletter.

Ian Wace 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 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 let’s take a look at the new hedge fund action regarding UP Fintech Holding Limited (NASDAQ:TIGR).

Hedge fund activity in UP Fintech Holding Limited (NASDAQ:TIGR)

At the end of September, a total of 6 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 50% from the previous quarter. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards TIGR over the last 21 quarters. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

The largest stake in UP Fintech Holding Limited (NASDAQ:TIGR) was held by Marshall Wace LLP, which reported holding $3.4 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by Arrowstreet Capital with a $1.1 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Citadel Investment Group, Millennium Management, and Citadel Investment Group. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Marshall Wace LLP allocated the biggest weight to UP Fintech Holding Limited (NASDAQ:TIGR), around 0.02% of its 13F portfolio. Arrowstreet Capital is also relatively very bullish on the stock, earmarking 0.0017 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to TIGR.

Now, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Arrowstreet Capital, managed by Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell, created the most outsized position in UP Fintech Holding Limited (NASDAQ:TIGR). Arrowstreet Capital had $1.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group also initiated a $0.3 million position during the quarter. The only other fund with a brand new TIGR position is John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as UP Fintech Holding Limited (NASDAQ:TIGR) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Quotient Technology Inc (NYSE:QUOT), Eastman Kodak Co. (NYSE:KODK), Immatics N.V. (NASDAQ:IMTX), Himax Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:HIMX), Meta Financial Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CASH), Conduent Incorporated (NASDAQ:CNDT), and National Western Life Group Inc. (NASDAQ:NWLI). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to TIGR’s market value.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 12.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $114 million. That figure was $5 million in TIGR’s case. Immatics N.V. (NASDAQ:IMTX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Himax Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:HIMX) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks UP Fintech Holding Limited (NASDAQ:TIGR) is even less popular than HIMX. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for TIGR is 27. 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 TIGR 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 TIGR as the stock returned 31.6% since Q3 (through November 27th) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

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