Investors Are Abuzz About These 4 Stocks Today: Here’s Why

Four major companies are attracting attention in morning trading. While the news wasn’t all positive, all four stocks are trending in the right direction to close out the week nonetheless. Let’s see what has investors talking about these stocks and what impact the news in question will have on them going forward.

We’ll start with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), which analysts have released conflicting statements on this morning, but which is up by 2.33% regardless. On the one hand, Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) analyst Katy Huberty expects Apple to post in-line results for the third quarter (Apple’s fiscal fourth quarter of 2015), while guiding towards iPhone sales growth in the fourth quarter (Apple’s first quarter of fiscal year 2016). Huberty has an ‘Overweight’ rating and $162 price target on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). On the other hand, Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) analyst Jim Suva removed Apple from the firm’s U.S Focus List, while also lowering his iPhone sales estimates for the current quarter. Suva does however maintain a ‘Buy’ rating and $145 price target on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). David Einhorn remains bullish on Apple, as does Carl Icahn, the latter owning 52.76 million shares of the tech giant on June 30.

Professional investors like Einhorn and Icahn spend considerable time and money conducting due diligence on each company they invest in, which makes them the perfect investors to emulate. However, we also know that the returns of hedge funds on the whole have not been good for several years, underperforming the market. We analyzed the historical stock picks of these investors and our research revealed that the small-cap picks of these funds performed far better than their large-cap picks, which is where most of their money is invested and why their performances as a whole have been poor. Why pay fees to invest in both the best and worst ideas of a particular hedge fund when you can simply mimic the best ideas of the best fund managers on your own? A portfolio consisting of the 15 most popular small-cap stock picks among the funds we track has returned 102% and beaten the market by more than 53 percentage points since the end of August 2012 (see the details).

Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) is up by 3.81% this morning after new CEO Jack Dorsey announced that he would donate one-third of his Twitter shares towards an equity pool for its employees. The generous move is being well-received by investors, who suspect it will turn around lagging morale at the company and make it a more attractive destination for top talent. Dorsey announced last week that Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) would cut over 300 jobs as it looks to improve efficiency and cut costs. It will be interesting to see what effect Dorsey’s moves have on hedge fund sentiment towards the stock, which was poor among the investors that we track during the second quarter. The number of elite funds in our database with long positions in Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) declined by 17 to 47 during that period.

We have two more big stocks on the following page that are making headlines and trending upwards today.

Just a day after its strong third quarter earnings were unwrapped, General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) was selected by the United Auto Workers last night as the next of the big three Detroit auto manufacturers to work towards a new deal with the union, following the four-year deal it inked with Fiat Chrysler this week. The union is looking to sign a four-year deal with General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) as well, and is reportedly expecting both it and Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) to pony up an even sweeter deal, given their strength. GM is up by 1.10% today and by 7.99% this week after a very strong earnings report released on Wednesday in which it disclosed revenue of $38.55 billion and earnings per share of $1.50, the latter blasting past estimates by more than 25%. That performance no doubt sat well with billionaire investors Warren Buffett and David Tepper, which held stakes in General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) of 41 million shares and 18.79 million shares respectively as of June 30.

Lastly we come to Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI), the gaming giant which was the second-most popular gaming stock among the firms we track as of June 30. Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI), the developer of the hit Call of Duty and Warcraft franchises, is up by over 1% today after announcing a big push into e-sports yesterday, which will be headed by former ESPN Chief Executive Steve Bornstein. The number of competitive gaming viewers is expected to explode to over 165 million by 2018, as global e-sports pushes towards becoming a billion-dollar industry, being particularly popular in Asia. Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI)’s own Call of Duty franchise and strategy card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft are two of the more popular e-sports games, though the space has largely been dominated by the MOBA games League of Legends and Defense of the Ancients.

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