Why Korn/Ferry, AMD, Wells Fargo & Two Other Stocks Are in Spotlight Today

U.S. markets continue to lose ground on Thursday, marking the sixth consecutive day of losses. The decline seems to be driven by Brexit fears, slipping oil prices and a sell-off in Japanese stocks. However, as usual, individual stocks are moving significantly than the rest of the market. In this article, we are going to look into five companies, Korn/Ferry International (NYSE:KFY), GlobeImmune Inc (NASDAQ:GBIM), Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD), Teekay Offshore Partners L.P. (NYSE:TOO) and Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC), which are in the spotlight on Thursday afternoon.

At Insider Monkey, we track around 730 hedge funds and institutional investors. Through extensive backtests, we have determined that imitating some of the stocks that these investors are collectively bullish on can help retail investors generate double digits of alpha per year. The key is to focus on the small-cap picks of these funds, which are usually less followed by the broader market and allow for larger price inefficiencies (see more details about our small-cap strategy). This is why, in addition to evaluating the events surrounding these five stocks, we will look into what the hedge funds in our database think about the companies in question.

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Korn/Ferry Down On Disappointing Guidance, Downgrade

Let’s start with Korn/Ferry International (NYSE:KFY), which is down by almost 20% on Thursday afternoon, following the announcement of the company’s fiscal fourth-quarter financial results. EPS of $0.58 and revenue of $417.1 million, up by 47.8% year-over-year, came in ahead of the Street’s consensus estimates of $0.62 and $446.46 million, respectively. However, guidance for the ongoing quarter disappointed analysts: management said it expects EPS in the range of $0.50 to $0.58 on revenue of $371 million to $391 million, while analysts expected EPS of $0.58 on sales of $384.9 million. Also impacting on the stock is a downgrade issued by Baird on Thursday, to Neutral from Outperform. Among the funds we track, 15 held long positions in Korn/Ferry International (NYSE:KFY) at the end of the first quarter of 2016. Among them, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates still seemed bullish, as it last disclosed ownership of 914,494 shares of the company, or roughly $25.8 million in stock, held as of March 31.

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GlobeImmune Soars On Takeover Speculation

Next up is GlobeImmune Inc (NASDAQ:GBIM), which is up by 39% on Thursday, and more than 62% since Monday, apparently on speculation regarding a takeover. The company has until July 1 to present a plan to comply with an unmet NASDAQ rule, and it seems like a buyout could provide a good way out of this pickle. As a thinly-traded nano-cap, GlobeImmune Inc (NASDAQ:GBIM) is not particularly popular among institutional investors. In fact, only 10 institutional investors disclosed long equity positions as of the end of the first quarter.

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On the next page we will look into three more stocks posting big moves on Thursday afternoon.

AMD Spikes Up On Analyst Upgrade

Shares of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) are trading up by more than 6.3% on Thursday afternoon, driven by an upgrade from Canaccord’s Matt Ramsay. Citing the sales potential of the newly released Polaris GPUs and upcoming Zen CPUs, the expert boosted his rating to Buy from Hold, and upped his price target to $6.00 from $3.25. A total of 13 funds among those we track were long Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) at the end of the first quarter of 2016. Among them were D E Shaw, which held 4.68 million shares and Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies, which disclosed ownership of 794,400 shares.

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Teekay Offshore Sees Correction

On the other hand, Teekay Offshore Partners L.P. (NYSE:TOO) is trading down by more than 6%, giving up some of the gains posted on Wednesday. Yesterday’s spike had been triggered by the announcement that bondholders had granted the partnership formal approvals to extend to late-2018 most of the principal maturity payments for a couple of its existing Norwegian Kroner senior unsecured bonds. The bonds were originally maturing in January 2017 and January 2018, subject to completion of the other previously declared financing initiatives, a press release explained. Teekay Offshore Partners L.P. (NYSE:TOO) saw the number of funds in our database long its stock surge by 33.3% over the first quarter to 12 at the end of March and their combined stakes accounted for almost 7% of the company’s outstanding stock. Alec Litowitz and Ross Laser’s Magnetar Capital alone held about 2.45% of the float, or 2.62 million shares, valued at $14.89 million at the end of March.

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Wells Fargo’s Loosing Streak Continues

Finally, we’ve got Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC), whose stock has inched down by 0.9% on Thursday afternoon, trading around four-month lows. This marks the eighth consecutive day of negative returns, the longest losing streak registered by the stock since October, 2007. The latest run-down has resulted in a loss of more than 8%, and has been –seemingly- driven by Brexit fears and the Fed’s decision to keep interest rates unchanged. Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC) saw the number of funds in our database long its stock increase by five to 90 during the first quarter; their stakes accounted for more than 12% of the float. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is the largest institutional shareholder of record in the company, with 479.7 million shares.

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