Is it Still Safe to Invest in Coursera (COUR)?

ClearBridge Investments, an investment management firm, published its “SMID Cap Growth Strategy” third quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. During the third quarter, the ClearBridge SMID Cap Growth Strategy outperformed the benchmark Russell 2500 Growth Index. On an absolute basis, the Strategy had gains across five of the 10 sectors in which it was invested during the quarter (out of 11 sectors total), with the health care sector the leading contributor and the consumer discretionary sector being the main detractor. You can take a look at the fund’s top 5 holdings to have an idea about their best picks for 2021.

ClearBridge SMID Cap Growth Strategy, in its Q3 2021 investor letter, mentioned Coursera, Inc. (NYSE: COUR) and discussed its stance on the firm. Coursera, Inc. is a California-based open online course provider with a $3.4 billion market capitalization. COUR delivered a -14.85% return for the past month, and it closed at $24.85 per share on December 28, 2021.

Here is what ClearBridge SMID Cap Growth Strategy has to say about Coursera, Inc.  in its Q3 2021 investor letter:

“We also added two positions in the IPO aftermarket, (one is) online education portal Coursera. Coursera, which makes academic courses from some of the world’s leading universities available through its platform and offers online degree programs, saw its shares trade lower following its March IPO but has seen significant uptake for its services since the onset of COVID.”

Photo by Compare Fibre on Unsplash

Based on our calculations, Coursera, Inc. (NYSE: COUR) was not able to clinch a spot in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. COUR was in 25 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021, compared to 11 funds in the previous quarter. Coursera, Inc. (NYSE: COUR) delivered a -26.92% return in the past 3 months.

In November this year, we published an article that involves COUR in the 10 Online Education Stocks to Buy. You can find more than 100 investor letters from hedge funds and prominent investors on our hedge fund investor letters 2021 Q3 page.

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