Should You Now Consider Liquidating Your Aspen Group, Inc. (ASPU) Stake?

Wasatch Global Investors, an investment management firm, published its “Wasatch Micro Cap Value Fund” fourth quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. During the fourth quarter of 2021, the Wasatch Micro Cap Value Fund—Investor Class rose 0.98% and outperformed the benchmark Russell Microcap® Index, which declined -2.66%. For the full year, the Fund gained 26.78% as the benchmark added 19.34%. Spare some time to check the fund’s top 5 holdings to have a clue about their top bets for 202

Wasatch Micro Cap Value Fund, in its Q4 2021 investor letter, mentioned Aspen Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: ASPU) and discussed its stance on the firm. Aspen Group, Inc. is a New York, New York-based education technology holding company with a $26.7 million market capitalization. ASPU delivered a -54.66% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are down by -87.57%. The stock closed at $1.07 per share on March 04, 2022.

Here is what Wasatch Micro Cap Value Fund has to say about Aspen Group, Inc. in its Q4 2021 investor letter:

“The individual holding that detracted the most from Fund performance for the fourth quarter was Aspen Group, Inc. (ASPU)—an education company that operates two online universities. In 2014, the company shifted its focus to launching postlicensure online nursing programs for existing registered nurses. Prior to the global pandemic, there was a significant nursing shortage that for years affected how patient care was delivered. Now, Covid-19 has exacerbated nursing shortages and other deficiencies in the health-care system. But despite the strongest demand for nursing staff ever seen, enrollments into Aspen’s online nursing programs have been declining. We believe the Omicron variant will worsen the fatigue felt by nurses and this variant as well as other potential variants will have lingering effects on the nursing profession. After considerable re-evaluation, we no longer think Aspen can overcome the pandemicrelated headwinds and we sold our position in the company.”

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Our calculations show that Aspen Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: ASPU) failed to obtain a mark on our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. ASPU was in 9 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021, compared to 7 funds in the previous quarter. Aspen Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: ASPU) delivered a -61.23% return in the past 3 months.

In February 2022, we also shared another hedge fund’s views on ASPU in another article. You can find other letters from hedge funds and prominent investors on our hedge fund investor letters 2021 Q4 page.

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