Were Hedge Funds Right About Sportradar Group AG (SRAD)?

We know that hedge funds generate strong, risk-adjusted returns over the long run, which is why imitating the picks that they are collectively bullish on can be a profitable strategy for retail investors. With billions of dollars in assets, professional investors have to conduct complex analyses, spend many resources and use tools that are not always available for the general crowd. This doesn’t mean that they don’t have occasional colossal losses; they do. However, it is still a good idea to keep an eye on hedge fund activity. With this in mind, let’s examine the smart money sentiment towards Sportradar Group AG (NASDAQ:SRAD) and determine whether hedge funds skillfully traded this stock.

Is Sportradar Group AG (NASDAQ:SRAD) going to take off soon? The smart money was getting optimistic. The number of long hedge fund bets moved up by 30 recently. Sportradar Group AG (NASDAQ:SRAD) was in 30 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. Our calculations also showed that SRAD isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium prices have more than doubled over the past year, so we go through lists like the 10 best EV 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. Keeping this in mind we’re going to take a look at the latest hedge fund action encompassing Sportradar Group AG (NASDAQ:SRAD).

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

At third quarter’s end, a total of 30 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 30 from the second quarter of 2021. By comparison, 0 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in SRAD a year ago. So, let’s check out which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

More specifically, Spruce House Investment Management was the largest shareholder of Sportradar Group AG (NASDAQ:SRAD), with a stake worth $22.6 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Spruce House Investment Management was MIC Capital Partners, which amassed a stake valued at $21 million. Tiger Global Management LLC, Balyasny Asset Management, 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 MIC Capital Partners allocated the biggest weight to Sportradar Group AG (NASDAQ:SRAD), around 3.85% of its 13F portfolio. Element Capital Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, dishing out 3.24 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to SRAD.

As one would reasonably expect, key money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Spruce House Investment Management, managed by Zachary Sternberg and Benjamin Stein, assembled the largest position in Sportradar Group AG (NASDAQ:SRAD). Spruce House Investment Management had $22.6 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Mubadala Investment’s MIC Capital Partners also made a $21 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new SRAD positions are Chase Coleman’s Tiger Global Management LLC, Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Sportradar Group AG (NASDAQ:SRAD). We will take a look at Fiverr International Ltd. (NYSE:FVRR), AngloGold Ashanti Limited (NYSE:AU), Exelixis, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXEL), Beyond Meat, Inc. (NASDAQ:BYND), Prosperity Bancshares, Inc. (NYSE:PB), Digital Turbine Inc (NASDAQ:APPS), and OGE Energy Corp. (NYSE:OGE). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to SRAD’s market cap.

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As you can see these stocks had an average of 20.1 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $342 million. That figure was $158 million in SRAD’s case. Exelixis, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXEL) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand AngloGold Ashanti Limited (NYSE:AU) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. Sportradar Group AG (NASDAQ:SRAD) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for SRAD is 90. 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 positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 29.6% in 2021 and beat the market again by 3.6 percentage points. Unfortunately, SRAD wasn’t nearly as popular as these 5 stocks and hedge funds that were betting on SRAD were disappointed as the stock returned -40.8% since the end of September (through 1/31) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as all of these stocks already outperformed the market since 2019.

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

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