Why Four of Last Night’s Biggest Losers Are Falling Further Today

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U.S stocks are struggling to hold on to their gains after a better-than-expected jobs report has fueled talk that an interest rate hike in December may now be imminent. Lower oil prices have also put pressure on the market, but the stocks we are going to discuss in this article are plunging for completely different reasons. Let’s find out why investors are shying away from Glu Mobile Inc. (NASDAQ:GLUU), Men’s Wearhouse Inc (NYSE:MW), Sierra Wireless, Inc. (USA) (NASDAQ:SWIR) and Tripadvisor Inc (NASDAQ:TRIP) today.

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Most investors can’t outperform the stock market by individually picking stocks because stock returns aren’t evenly distributed. A randomly picked stock has only a 35%-to-45% chance (depending on the investment horizon) to outperform the market. There are a few exceptions, one of which is when it comes to purchases made by corporate insiders. 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 the 15 most popular small-cap stocks among hedge funds outperformed the market by nearly a percentage point per month between 1999 and 2012. We have been forward testing the performance of these stock picks since the end of August 2012 and they have returned 102% over the ensuing 37 months, outperforming the S&P 500 Index by over 53 percentage points (read the details here). The trick is focusing only on the best small-cap stock picks of funds, not their large-cap stock picks which are extensively covered by analysts and followed by almost everybody.

Glu Mobile Inc. (NASDAQ:GLUU) is sliding today, as investors were not impressed by the company’s latest financial report. For the three months ending September 30 the company posted revenues of $64.4 million, topping forecasts of $59.3 million, and a profit of less than $0.01 per share, in line with analyst expectations of break-even earnings. The mobile game developer has also announced a partnership with Tencent Holdings Limited, a Chinese provider of internet services, to bring the latter’s popular shooting game, WeFire, to international markets.

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Glu Mobile Inc. (NASDAQ:GLUU) gained some popularity among the hedge funds we follow during the second quarter, with 24 of them reporting a position in the company, up from 18 at the end of March. Together they held roughly 15% of the company’s outstanding shares. Israel Englander was among the fund managers that were bullish on the stock, having boosted his stake by 8% to 2.63 million shares, while Jim Simons upped his stake by 44% to amass 1.44 million shares, according to Renaissance Technologies’ latest 13F filing.

Men’s Wearhouse Inc (NYSE:MW) has released some preliminary results for the third quarter and things are not looking good at all for the men’s clothing retailer. Sales at Jos. A. Bank plunged by roughly 15% over the quarter and are expected to fall by 25% during the current quarter. Men’s Wearhouse was thus forced to revise its forward guidance and has cut its earnings estimates to a range of $0.46-to-$0.51, down from previous projections of $0.87 cents. Analysts, in turn, expected profits to come in at $0.99 per share. Shares have tumbled by more than 42% in the first hours of trading today.

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According to our data, 33 hedge funds that we track were invested in Men’s Wearhouse Inc (NYSE:MW) at the end of June, together controlling roughly 37.5% of the company’s outstanding shares. Ricky Sandler’s Eminence Capital sought to distance itself from the stock, having reduced its holding of the stock by 26% to 3.19 million shares. Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson, on the other hand, thought it was a good time to buy Men’s Wearhouse and increased their stake to 1.62 million shares.

Two more of the day’s worst performing stocks are discussed on the next page.

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