The Oprah Effect: 10 Stocks Benefitting From Oprah’s Endorsement

We at Insider Monkey wonder how many lower and middle income people are going to shell out $55 for a single candle or $100 for sweatpants (Because they make your butt look half as big? What about laying off of those Ghiradelli brownies and the world’s best Mac ‘n cheese?) because their leader endorsed them. At least it might be possible for spectators to cash in on the idiocy of those spending money for the momentary bliss of imaginary wealth. Insider Monkey has ranked the public companies that had items on the Oprah’s Ultimate (oh my gosh, I just realized my spell check has ‘Oprah’ as a valid word) Favorite Things 2010 episode that aired on Friday, November 19th. We think the smaller companies have the most to gain. We’ve also indicated which of the following had insiders make purchases recently, which are we feel more likely to see gains.

1. Williams Sonoma (WSM) – Market Cap: $3.46 B

Insiders have been selling (WSM).

2. Lululemon (LULU) – Market Cap: $3.59 B.

An insider of the company bought 3000 shares a year ago at a price of $25.41. The shares doubled since then.

3. United Airlines (UAL) – Market Cap: $4.82 B

Insiders have been selling UAL.

4. Nikon (NINOY.PK) – Market Cap: $8.30 B

Nikon shares mainly trade in Japan. We don’t have recent insider transactions.

5. Netflix (NFLX) – Market Cap: $9.04 B

Not only there are several insiders selling NFLX  in the open market, prominent hedge fund managers, such as Whitney Tilson, are short selling Netflix too.

6. Royal Caribbean (RCL) – Market Cap: $9.10 B

There are several insiders selling RCL shares which are trading around $42.  There were significant insider purchases by several insiders in 2009 when the stock was trading around $7 per share.

7. Ralph Lauren (RL) – Market Cap: $10.19 B

There are several insiders selling RL, which is trading north of $100 per share.  The most recent insider purchase was in February at around $77.

8. Kyocera (KYO) – Market Cap: $18.67 B

We don’t have any insider trading data for Kyocera.

9. Sony (SNE) – Market Cap: $35.53 B

We don’t have any insider trading data for Sony

10. Nike (NKE) – Market Cap: $41.01 B

An insider bought 500 shares at the beginning of October at $79.48. The stock currently trades at $85.81, beating the S&P 500 index by more than 2 percentage points.