Here’s Why ENSCO PLC (ESV), Yum! Brands, Inc. (YUM), and Three Other Stocks Are Trending Today

Although the non-farm payrolls for October came in worse than expected, at 161,000 versus the expected 175,000, volatility remains low on the Street as all three indexes are close to flat.

In this article, let’s examine why ENSCO PLC (NYSE:ESV), Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM), Mylan NV (NASDAQ:MYL), Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:TEVA), and Endo International plc – Ordinary Shares (NASDAQ:ENDP) are trending and let’s determine how the funds from our database were positioned towards each stock.

While there are many metrics that investors can assess in the investment process, the hedge fund sentiment is something that is often overlooked. However, hedge funds and other institutional investors allocate significant resources while making their bets and their long-term focus makes them the perfect investors to emulate. This is supported by our research, which determined that following the small-cap stocks that hedge funds are collectively bullish on can help a smaller investor to beat the S&P 500 by around 95 basis points per month (see the details here).

ENSCO PLC (NYSE:ESV) shares are 6% in the red after Reuters reported that Saudi Arabia is threatening to increase oil output to 11-12 million bpd from its current 10.7 million bpd in the latest round of OPEC meetings to cut production. Although the kingdom would like to see OPEC production cut, Iraq and Iran have refused to play ball. Iraq has asked for an exemption due to its need to fight ISIS, while Iran has refused to make sacrifices on the account of its desire to make up for the years of Western sanctions. By threatening to pump more oil and potentially sending oil prices crashing, Saudi Arabia threatening the to wield the proverbial stick to get other OPEC nations to agree to cut. On the back of the news, WTI futures are off by 2% and sit below $44 per barrel. David Keidan‘s Buckingham Capital Management raised its stake in ENSCO PLC (NYSE:ESV) by 65% in the third quarter to 724,666 shares held at the end of September.

Although it may have spun off its China division, Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) is nevertheless focused on growth. The company is trending today after it announced that its Taco Bell segment has plans to increase to around 9,000 units from the current 7,000 domestically by 2022. The increase in units will create tens of thousands of new jobs and will help Yum management move closer to their revenue growth goals. A total of 46 funds tracked by us owned shares of Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) at the end of the second quarter, down by five funds from the previous quarter.

On the next page, we examine Mylan NV, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (ADR), and Endo International are in the spotlight.

Mylan NV (NASDAQ:MYL), Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:TEVA), and Endo International plc – Ordinary Shares (NASDAQ:ENDP) are on investors radars after the three stocks fell hard on Thursday following news that U.S. regulators could charge the companies, and others, for suspected price collusion by the end of the year. Shares of all three drug-makers are in the green today after various Wall Street analysts pointed out that the news from the Bloomberg article wasn’t exactly new information given that most of the companies had already disclosed receiving subpoenas. With that said, due to the uncertainty from the government investigation, some analysts are assigning a higher discount rate to their long term valuation models. Due to that change, HSBC downgraded Teva to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ and lowered its rating to $44 from $66.

Of the 749 top funds that we track, the smart money liked Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:TEVA) the most, with 55 funds reporting stakes as of the end of June. Meanwhile 44 investors were long Mylan NV (NASDAQ:MYL) and 36 funds held shares of  Endo International plc – Ordinary Shares (NASDAQ:ENDP) heading into the third quarter.

Disclosure: none