Is it Time to Secure Profits in Okta Inc. (OKTA)?

Lakehouse Capital, an investment management firm, published its “Global Growth Fund” second quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. A quarterly return of 33.2% net of fees and expenses, was recorded by the fund for the second quarter of 2021, compared to 27.7% for its benchmark. You can view the fund’s top 5 holdings to have an idea about their top bets for 2021.

In the Q2 2021 investor letter of Lakehouse Capital, the fund mentioned Okta, Inc. (NASDAQ: OKTA), and discussed its stance on the firm. Okta, Inc. is a San Francisco, California-based IT service management company, that currently has an $38.1 billion market capitalization. OKTA delivered a -2.10% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are up by 12.64%. The stock closed at $248.18 per share on July 29, 2021.

Here is what Lakehouse Capital has to say about Okta, Inc. in its Q2 2021 investor letter:

“The Fund held 20 positions as of the end of June and exited four during the year (including) Okta. The companies we exited were sold almost entirely on the basis of their valuations getting stretched well past their norms and to levels where the return profile no longer offered the asymmetric upside that led us to invest in the first place. We dislike selling on valuation as great growth companies are hard to find and letting winners run is an important facet of a winning growth strategy, however, we’re not gluttons for punishment either and in each of those cases we redeployed capital towards other high-quality growth companies with less demanding valuations.”

IT Support Specialist, software

christina-wocintechchat-com-FVgECvTjlBQ-unsplash

Based on our calculations, Okta, Inc. (NASDAQ: OKTA) was not able to clinch a spot in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. OKTA was in 48 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2021, compared to 61 funds in the fourth quarter of 2020. Okta, Inc. (NASDAQ: OKTA) delivered a  -7.55% return in the past 3 months.

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 115 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.

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, pet market is growing at a 7% annual rate and is expected to reach $110 billion in 2021. So, we are checking out the 5 best stocks for animal lovers. We go through lists like the 10 best battery stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. 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 homepage.

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