5 Stocks That Are Turning Investors’ Heads Today

Market participants are bearish as another week comes to a close, amid growing nervousness over the upcoming Brexit vote and a drop in oil prices. Today’s headline making stocks include Wendys Co (NASDAQ:WEN), Viacom, Inc. (NASDAQ:VIAB), Mattress Firm Holding Corp (NASDAQ:MFRM), Mobileye NV (NYSE:MBLY), and SUPERVALU INC. (NYSE:SVU). Let’s see why these stocks are moving today and analyze the hedge fund sentiment towards each of these companies.

At Insider Monkey, we track around 765 hedge funds and institutional investors. Through extensive backtests, we have determined that imitating some of the stocks that these investors are collectively bullish on, can help retail investors generate double digits of alpha per year. The key is to focus on the small-cap picks of these funds, which are usually less followed by the broader market and allow for larger price inefficiencies (see the details here).

Another Type of Malware Hits Wendys Payment Terminals

Wendys Co (NASDAQ:WEN) is down by 0.24% today after the company said it found another type of malicious software affecting its payment terminals. The Ohio-based company announced in May that around 300 of its restaurants were hit by instances of unusual credit card activity. Wendys now thinks that the number of franchise restaurants affected by the attacks was “considerably higher” than the previous estimates.

Out of 766 active funds tracked by Insider Monkey, 21 were bullish on Wendys Co (NASDAQ:WEN) as of the end of the first quarter. Nelson Peltz’s Trian Partners owned around 40.79 million shares of the company at that time.

Big Shakeup Coming at Viacom

Viacom, Inc. (NASDAQ:VIAB)’s stock has fallen by more than 3% today after the Wall Street Journal reported that big changes to the company’s Board are on the way. National Amusements, the holding company which controls Viacom through supervoting shares, has reportedly started recruiting potential replacements for the board. Last month, Sumner Redstone, who owns National Amusements, fired Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman as a trustee of the entity that will assume voting control of Viacom after the death or incapacitation of the holding company’s 93-year-old owner. The source added that the ultimate goal of this shakeup is to send Mr. Dauman home.

A total of 42 hedge funds in our system were long Viacom, Inc. (NASDAQ:VIAB) as of the end of March, including Donald Yacktman’s Yacktman Asset Management owning 4.44 million shares of the company.

On the next page we’ll discuss why Mattress Firm, Mobileye NV, and SUPERVALU INC are in the crosshairs of investors today.

Mattress Firm Misses Estimates

Mattress Firm Holding Corp (NASDAQ:MFRM) has plunged by more than 16% after reporting a loss of $0.10 per share for the fiscal first quarter ended April 30, worse than analysts’ consensus estimate of a loss of $0.03 per share. Revenue for the quarter came in at $839.4 million, missing the consensus estimate of $869.75 million. For the full 2016 fiscal year, the Houston-based mattress company expects its EPS to be in the range of $2.25-to-$2.35, down from its prior guidance of $2.50-to-$2.60.

As of the end of the first quarter, 18 hedge funds in our system had approximately $459 million worth of stakes in Mattress Firm Holding Corp (NASDAQ:MFRM). David S. Winter and David J. Millstone’s 40 North Management had ownership of more than 3.66 million shares of the company on March 31.

Piper Jaffray Gives ‘Overweight’ Rating to Mobileye NV

Asset Management firm Piper Jaffray has given an ‘Overweight’ rating to Mobileye NV (NYSE:MBLY), along with a price target of $50.00 in its newly-launched coverage of the stock, calling the equity its favorite “Car-of-the-Future” stock. The firm thinks that Mobileye NV (NYSE:MBLY) is a compelling option for investors seeking a defensible story with exposure to the fast-growing market of advanced car safety. Mobileye NV (NYSE:MBLY)’s stock has slipped by 1.15% today. 26 hedge funds that we track had positions in Mobileye NV (NYSE:MBLY) at the end of the first quarter, down from 33 funds at the end of 2015.

SUPERVALU Files Amendment No. 1 for Spinoff

Shares of SUPERVALU INC. (NYSE:SVU) have slipped by more than 1% today after the company filed Amendment No. 1 to its Form-10 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regarding the anticipated spin-off of its Save-A-Lot business into a separate, publicly-traded company. The amendment includes recent financial results for the discount grocery store division and its expectations after the spin-off. Conan Laughlin’s North Tide Capital is the biggest of 28 stakeholders of SUPERVALU INC. (NYSE:SVU) from within our database of select, high-performing funds as of March 31. It owned 24.00 million shares of the company at that time.

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