Why Are These Stocks Trading In Red Today?

Up next is Smith & Wesson Holding Corp (NASDAQ:SWHC), whose stock is down by almost 4% on Wednesday, as President Obama prepared to roll out a series of executive actions on gun control. In addition, Wedbush downgraded the company’s stock to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Outperform’ on Wednesday, arguing that, “While gun industry sales are clearly in ‘surge’ mode, it is difficult to discern just how much of these sales are in fact incremental to the industry versus pulled-forward demand, with plenty of historical examples of both. Hence, given a healthy valuation and a stock that is up more than 150% over the past year (vs. -1% for the S&P),” the experts recommended to take profits and sell the stock.

Despite Wednesday’s tumble, shares of Smith & Wesson Holding Corp (NASDAQ:SWHC) have gained more than 47% since the end of the third quarter of 2015, and it looks like the smart money saw it coming. Among the institutions in our database, 30 disclosed long positions in the company as of the end of September, up from 22 at the end of June. In this group, we should highlight Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, which last declared having more than tripled its stake in the company, taking it to almost 1.2 million shares, worth about $20 million.

Finally, ENSCO PLC (NYSE:ESV) and Petroleo Brasileiro SA Petrobras (ADR) (NYSE:PBR) are down by 7.7% and 4.2%, respectively, amid news about the companies having ended a drill ship contract amidst low oil prices.

As of the end of the third quarter, 29 funds among those we track held long stakes in ENSCO, including Adage Capital Management. The fund managed by Phill Gross And Robert Atchinson last declared holding 5.2 million shares of the company.

On the other hand, Petroleo Brasileiro SA Petrobras (ADR) (NYSE:PBR) saw the hedge fund interest decline to 24 funds long as of the end of the third quarter from 31 funds by the end of the second quarter. Among them, we could highlight Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management, which held 9.64 million shares as of September 30, 2015.

Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no positions in any of the securities mentioned above.