You can never underestimate the benefits that stock research brings to your investment strategy. But to win in an ever-evolving marketplace, you’ve got to do more than just basic research.
Luckily, WhaleWisdom is a platform that goes a little further by tracking and analyzing the portfolio of the ‘Whales’ in the stock market.
By ‘the Whales’ we’re referring to investment funds, corporate insiders, and activist investors. With this tool, you get to use their exclusive insights to come up with your very own portfolio.
Sounds like something you’d like to learn more about? Here’s our in-depth review along with a verdict on whether the tool is worth its weight in gold.
About WhaleWisdom
This is a service with which you can track the portfolios of the leading hedge funds with the use of 13F fillings. With the advanced tools that it offers, you can easily research the stocks that are highly rated by the major investment firms, plus you can find out the firms that have an outstanding track record in the market.
The platform piggybacks on the leaders’ resources and performance so as to imitate their performance without incurring the hefty hedge fund fees.
It is the insight by the fund managers into the market that will guide you into developing your custom investment portfolio.
Who is the Founder?
Daniel Collins doubles up as the founder and president of this platform. He is a software developer by trade and has also been an investor for a significant period and was motivated by a show called Fast Money, whose discussion centered on Whale Watching.
It was here that he learned about 13Fs, and he decided to create on himself. In 2008, he founded the program since he believed the insight offered by the ‘whales’ of the stock market is too significant to be ignored.
Key Features of the Program
Let’s now look at the features that make this investment platform what it is.
1. 13F Backtester
This is one of the outstanding aspects of this platform. After selecting your ideal combination of funds to build your portfolio, you can run a backtest to compare that portfolio’s performance with the S&P 500 in the long run.
We liked that you get complete control over the holdings that you choose to include in your theoretical portfolio. Here, you can:
- Set the number of holdings that you wish to have
- Customize the strategy that you apply to rebalance your portfolio
- Restrict the holdings that are included by market sector, performance, or market cap
2. 13F Stock Screener
Another notable feature is a built-in stock screener that is designed to make it easy for you to scan around for stocks based on all 13F filing or a subset of funds.
From here, you can narrow your search based on the average weight of that stock within funds that hold it, or the proportion of funds increasing their position in a stock.
Besides that, the service also offers a ‘double-down’ report which is a version of a pre-built screener that searches for stocks that shed their value quarter-over-quarter and also for funds that already held the stock before increasing their position.
3. WhaleIndex and WhaleScore
WhaleIndex is simply a list of 100 of the stocks that fund managers most commonly hold. The index is rebalanced quarterly, and over the past 3 and 5 years, it has doubled the performance of the S&P 500.
Let’s also talk about WhaleScore, which is a digit that is designed to indicate the long-term performance of that particular fund in comparison to the S&P 500.
However, only the paid subscribers can access WhaleScore and WhaleIndex.
4. Consensus Picks
We were impressed at how the service enables you to find the most popular stocks among investment funds.
So, the Consensus Picks is a tool through which you can select a group of funds as allowed by your subscription tier and then generate a report showing the number of holdings that they have in common.
5. Heatmap
This tool displays the stocks that have experienced increased purchasing activity from 13F filings funds over the most recent quarter.
When you click on any individual stock, you will see the total number of funds holding the stock and the number of funds increasing and decreasing their position in that particular stock.
6. The Dashboard
We found the dashboard a bit difficult to navigate, whereby the interface is split into two: an interactive dashboard that allows you to run reports and a non-interactive one where you find premade graphics such as WhaleIndex and the 13F heatmap.
The Pricing
There are three subscription tiers that you could take advantage of to access what this service has to offer. The basic tier is the free subscription, whereby you will get access to 13F data for the past two years. Further, may also use most of the reporting and backtesting tools on the platform.
However, most reports will limit you to analyzing five funds at a time.
Next up is the Standard package that goes for $300 per year or $90 per quarter. Here, you can access 13F data dating up to 2001, plus you can analyze up to ten funds at a go. You also get the privilege of using the WhaleIndex and WhaleScore tools.
Then, there is the Pro tier that costs $500 per year or $150 per quarter, and you can analyze up to 50 funds at a time. We also believe you will appreciate the combined holdings report offered, which includes multiple fund’s holdings in a single portfolio.
Which Trader is It Best For?
If you are an investor who wants to replicate the work and market insights of the stock market ‘whales’, this platform would be perfect for you. Some of the tools that you find here include WhaleIndex, which you can use to develop custom portfolios.
All in all, you should be an investor holding positions for at least three months at a time if you want to get the full benefits of this platform.
And due to the quarterly updates of the 13F Filings, the information provided may not be sufficiently actionable for the short-term traders.
Pros and Cons
As we approach the end of our discussion, let’s summarize some of the benefits and drawbacks that we found with this service.
Pros
- The Free tier gives you access to many valuable tools
- Offers historical 13F filing data from 2001
- You have the option of building and backtesting custom strategies from 13F holdings data
- The WhaleIndex portfolio has recorded better results than the S&P 500 numerous times
Cons
- The Standard plan limits you to analyzing only ten funds at a time
- At times, the 13F data is up to 45 days out of date
Conclusion
From our detailed review of this program, we highly recommend that you try it out as it has a lot to offer long-term investors. Instead of having to conduct strenuous research on the hottest stocks in the market, you will simply piggyback the actions of the major players in the market, such as investment firms and insider traders.
In the end, besides becoming hugely successful in your trades, you will end up saving a lot of time and money. What more could a budding trader ask for?
We hope our review has convinced you enough to invest in this service.