What’s the Deal With These 5 Stocks on the Move Today?

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With earnings season now in full swing, the Dow and S&P 500 are each slightly in the red as investors weigh various bits of macro-economic data and different earnings reports. Among the stocks on the move this Thursday are 3D Systems Corporation (NYSE:DDD), Taiwan Semiconductor Mfg. Co. Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:TSM), Repros Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:RPRX), Polycom Inc (NASDAQ:PLCM), and Western Digital Corp (NASDAQ:WDC). Let’s find out why investors are buying and selling these stocks on high volumes and see what the smart money in our database thinks about them.

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An Analyst Turns Bullish on 3D

3D Systems Corporation (NYSE:DDD) is almost 20% higher today after Bank of America Merrill Lynch raised its rating on the stock to ‘Buy’ from ‘Underperform’ and increased its price target on it to $26 from $11. Bank of America’s Wamsi Mohan believes that 3D System’s new boss, Vyomesh Joshi, has the skill and the experience to turn around the company. The analyst thinks that Joshi will increase profitability by aligning cost with growth, and optimize 3D’s portfolio to deliver higher margin organic growth. The analyst raised his 2016 EPS estimate for the company to $0.30 from $0.28, and his 2017 EPS estimate to $0.57 from $0.39. The number of elite funds in our system with holdings in 3D Systems Corporation (NYSE:DDD) rose by three to 15 during the fourth quarter.

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Investors Unimpressed With Taiwan Semiconductor Beat

The market isn’t particularly impressed with Taiwan Semiconductor Mfg. Co. Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:TSM)‘s first quarter results. Although the company beat bottom-line expectations by $0.01 per share with EPS of $0.38 and met revenue estimates of $6.14 billion, shares of the company are almost 4% in the red this morning. Due to the February 6 earthquake, there was a delay in wafer shipments and sales dropped by 12.8% year-over-year in U.S dollar terms. Taiwan Semiconductor’s management expects gross margin of between 49%-to-51% and operating margin of between 38.5% and 40.5% for the next quarter. 24 funds that we track held 1.5% of Taiwan Semiconductor Mfg. Co. Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:TSM)’s float at the end of 2015. Ken Fisher‘s Fisher Asset Management owned slightly over 28 million shares.

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On the next page, we examine what’s happening with the shares of Repros Therapeutics, Polycom, and Western Digital.

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