Trending Stocks: Alibaba, JPMorgan, Citigroup, AMD, Wells Fargo & Co

The markets are in the green today amid stronger-than-expected quarterly earnings being issued from several finance and banking sector stocks, as well as healthy retail sales data for the month of September coming to light, which showed that sales rose by 0.6%, the most in three months.

Among the stocks that are in the spotlight today are Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD), Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA), Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C), Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM). Let’s find out why these stocks are being scrutinized today and analyze what hedge funds think of each of them.

Academic research has shown that certain insider purchases historically outperformed the market by an average of seven percentage points per year. This effect is more pronounced in small-cap stocks. Another exception is the small-cap stock picks of hedge funds. Our research has shown that imitating the 15 most popular small-cap stocks among hedge funds outperformed the market by nearly a percentage point per month between 1999 and 2012 (read more details here).

Alibaba to Use AMD Chips in the Cloud

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) has skyrocketed by some 8% so far today after Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) said that it plans to use AMD’s Radeon Pro graphics chips for its Cloud services. In a statement, Alibaba’s Cloud business president Simon Hu said the partnership between AMD and Alibaba Cloud will help diversify its cloud-based graphics processing solutions for its customers. The news is a breather for AMD, whose chips business has been struggling lately amid intense competition from rivals like Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) and NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA). AMD’s CEO Dr. Lisa Su said in a statement that working with Alibaba will help the company align its innovation and investments with the needs of the Cloud market. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) is tapping into Cloud services to compete with Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) Web Services andMicrosoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s Azure.

At the end of the second quarter, 25 funds tracked by Insider Monkey owned shares of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD), while 69 were long Alibaba.

Citigroup Beats Estimates

Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C)’s stock has risen by over 2% today after the company beat analysts’ estimates with its third quarter earnings results. The New York-based investment bank posted a profit of $3.84 billion, or $1.24 per share, down from $4.29 in billion profit posted for the same quarter of last year, but above the estimates of $1.16 per share. Revenue for the quarter came in at $17.76 billion, beating the forecasts of $17.36 billion. Citigroup has managed to withstand one of the toughest periods for the industry in recent years, with the end of fixed-income trading. Trading revenue, excluding an accounting adjustment, jumped by 16% to $4.13 billion for the quarter. Citigroup’s CEO Michael Corbat said that the sectors where the company has been investing are now gaining momentum. Mr. Corbat added that the company is “intensely focused” on shareholder returns. At the end of the second quarter, 97 funds in our database of 749 13F-filing funds were bullish on Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C).

Move to the next page to read about the rest of today’s trending stocks covered in this article.