Why Are These Stocks Trending on Wednesday?

It’s likely going to be a volatile few days for crude with the upcoming OPEC meeting on June 2. Crude futures are a bit lower for the day, down 1.22% and all three indexes are slightly in the red too. Some traders don’t think that OPEC can come to any sort of ‘freeze’ agreement while the bulls hold out hope. Among the stocks trending today are Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA), Workday Inc (NYSE:WDAY), Staples, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPLS), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE). Let’s find out why each stock is in the spotlight and see how the smart money is positioned towards them.

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Major Shareholder To Sell Part of Stake in Alibaba 

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) is 2.85% in the red after major shareholder SoftBank said it will sell minimum $7.9 billion of its stake in the company. SoftBank was an early shareholder of Alibaba and has made a home run return. Now it’s selling part of its stake to raise liquidity and the move should cut its stake in the Chinese e-commerce giant to around 28% of total shares when the transaction is complete. Softbank plans to raise the money by selling $2 billion back to Alibaba, $500 million to a sovereign wealth fund, $400 million to the Alibaba Partnership and $5 billion to institutional buyers via a trust. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) was included in the equity portfolios of 67 funds from our database at the end of March, down by 10 from the previous quarter.

Workday Slumps on Earnings

Workday Inc (NYSE:WDAY) reported fiscal first quarter EPS of $0.05 on sales of $345.4 million, beating the estimates by $0.07 per share and $6.72 million, respectively. Revenue rose by 37.6% year-over-year as the company’s cloud app subscription sales jumped 39% year-over-year. Guidance is strong, with management expecting fiscal second quarter sales of $371 million to $373 million, higher than the $370.9 million expected by analysts. Among the 766 funds in Insider Monkey’s database, 25 owned 7.6% of Workday shares at the end of the first quarter.

On the next page, we examine Staples, Microsoft Corporation, and Pfizer.

Staples CEO To Step Down

Staples, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPLS)’s shares inched down after the company announced that its CEO, Ron Sargent, will step down on June 14. Sargent will be replaced by Shria Goodman, who is currently Staples’ President of North America Operations, on an interim basis. The board of directors will meanwhile establish a committee to find a permanent CEO. Although he is stepping down from the CEO slot, Sargent will still be the non-executive Chairman of the company. Sargent is slated to step down after Staples failed to merge with rival Office Depot Inc (NASDAQ:ODP) due to antitrust concerns. The failed merger cost Staples $250 million in termination fees. A total of 52 funds from our database held shares of Staples, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPLS) heading into the second quarter of 2016.

Microsoft Partners Up With Xiaomi

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is in the spotlight today after the tech giant agreed to sell 1,500 of its patents to Xiaomi, one of China’s largest smartphone makers. In addition to buying the patents, Xiaomi has agreed to install Microsoft’s core software such as Skype and Office on its tablets and phones and to cross-license some of its patents. Although the exact financial terms of the deal weren’t revealed, the transaction will give Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) a bigger market-share in China’s lucrative productivity software market. The number of funds tracked by Insider Monkey with holdings in Microsoft rose by four to 144 during the first quarter.

Pfizer Announces Pricing of Debt Offering

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) announced the pricing of its debt offering consisting of five tranches of notes today, with the $1.25 billion aggregate principal amount of 1.200% notes due 2018, $850 million aggregate principal amount of 1.450% notes due 2019, $1.15 billion aggregate principal amount of 1.950% notes due 2021, $1.25 billion aggregate principal amount of 2.750% notes due 2026, and $500 million aggregate principal amount of 4.400% notes due 2044. Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) generally enjoys a low cost of capital due to its strong cash flows and good earnings visibility. Billionaire Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management owned more than 31 million shares of Pfizer at the end of March.

Disclosure: none