Why Are Investors Piling Into These Surging Stocks?

Although the Dow Jones Index and the S&P 500 are each close to flat for the day, shares of Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX), Textura Corp (NYSE:TXTR), Cliffs Natural Resources Inc (NYSE:CLF), Sarepta Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:SRPT), and Yandex NV (NASDAQ:YNDX) are all surging for various reasons. Let’s find out why investors are buying these stocks and also examine what the world’s greatest investors think of each equity.

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According to a tweet from Wall Street Journal reporter Dave Benoit, five Directors on Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX)‘s Board, including ValueAct’s Mason Morfit, might step down as soon as Sunday. The departing directors will be replaced by four new ones, many of whom have extensive pharmaceutical industry experience, in an effort to enhance Valeant’s credibility with investors. The potential Board shake up coincides with the company’s leadership change, as new CEO Joseph Papa will begin work in his new role beginning on Monday. Bill Ackman, who testified before Congress concerning Valeant and its drug pricing practices yesterday, is one of the top shareholders of Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX) and is playing an active role to try and turn the company around. Shares of Valeant are 1.4% in the green in afternoon trading.

Textura Corp (NYSE:TXTR) shares are more than 30% higher after Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) announced that it would acquire the company for $26 in cash per share. The total transaction values Textura at $663 million, net of the company’s cash. Textura’s board of directors has approved the transaction and the deal is expected to close at some point in 2016. In other news, Textura also reported EPS in-line of estimates at $0.09 on sales of $24.66 million. The latter number beat analysts’ estimates by $0.41 million. Of the 786 active funds that we track, three had positions in Textura Corp (NYSE:TXTR) at the end of the fourth quarter.

On the next page we examine three more soaring stocks in the form of Cliffs Natural Resources, Sarepta Therapeutics, and Yandex NV.

Cliffs Natural Resources Inc (NYSE:CLF) shares have soared by over 31% after the company reported net income attributable to common shareholders of $108 million for the first quarter of 2016, or $0.62 per diluted share, versus a loss of $4.26 per diluted share in the first quarter of 2015. However, first quarter sales took a big hit, down to $306 million from $446 million in the year-ago quarter, due to lower commodity prices. A major reason for the earnings improvement was Cliffs recording a $179 million gain on restructuring or extinguishment of debt. First quarter adjusted EBITDA was $36 million. Jim Simons‘ Renaissance Technologies owned more than 6.8 million shares of Cliffs Natural Resources Inc (NYSE:CLF) at the end of December.

Sarepta Surges On TheStreet Article 

Adam Feuerstein appears to have given a boost to Sarepta Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:SRPT) on Thursday, as shares of the biotech company are 27% higher after Mr. Feuerstein published an article entitled, ‘Sarepta Can Win Speedy FDA Drug Approval’. In the article, Feuerstein noted that although the consensus is that the FDA will reject Sarepta’s eteplirsen for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy due to Monday’s negative advisory panel documents, senior FDA officials including Dr. Janet Woodcock, made supportive statements about the drug. The final decision to reject or approve eteplirsen lies with Dr. Woodcock. The FDA has until the 26th of next month to make a decision as to whether to approve or deny the treatment. Sarepta Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:SRPT) was held by 17 top funds in our database who held almost one-quarter of the biotech company’s float at the end of 2015.

Yandex Rises on Earnings

Yandex NV (NASDAQ:YNDX) is 8.5% higher and above the $20 per share mark after Russia’s leading search engine reported first quarter adjusted net income of RUB 3.2 billion ($46.9 million) on sales of RUB 16.5 billion ($243.7 million), up by 41% and 34% respectively year-over-year. Search queries in Russia inched up by 7% year-over-year, while the company’s share of the Russian search market averaged 57.6% in the quarter, an uptick from the 57.3% mark it held in the fourth quarter of 2015. Management expects revenue to grow by 15%-to-19% year-over-year in 2016. 22 funds in our system had Yandex NV (NASDAQ:YNDX) as a part of their portfolios as of the end of 2015, out of the 786 active funds that Insider Monkey tracks.

Disclosure: None