A Look At Four Stocks Down In Last Trading Session of 2015

With the S&P 500 down today and risking to close the last trading day of 2015 in the red, a number of stocks have slipped significantly below the market. In this article, we are going to take a closer look at Sprint Corp (NYSE:S), Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD), Anavex Life Sciences Corp. (NASDAQ:AVXL), and Flamel Technologies S.A. (ADR) (NASDAQ:FLML), which are among today’s top losers.

In addition, let’s take a look at the smart money sentiment towards these stocks. We assess the sentiment by analyzing 13F filings of a select group of more than 700 hedge funds and other institutional investors. However, we are mainly interested in the small-cap picks of these investors, which we follow as part of our small-cap strategy. The strategy imitates the 15 most popular small-cap picks among the funds we track and it has managed to return around 102% since August 2012, outperforming the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by some 53 percentage points (see more details here).

Let’s start with Sprint Corp (NYSE:S), whose stock is down by 1.80%. The trading volume is significantly below average and there are no particular news related to the stock, so the decline is probably dragged by the overall market fall. In this way, Sprint Corp (NYSE:S)’s shares are ending the year around 14% in the red and the sentiment towards the stock among the funds we track is weak with 16 funds holding around 1.20% of the company at the end of September, down by seven over the quarter. Rob Citrone‘s Discovery Management initiated a stake in Sprint Corp (NYSE:S), containing 26.60 million shares, between July and September.

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD)‘s stock has inched down by some 1.70% so far today, amid a drop registered by most players in the industry. The company has been losing market share in the past couple of years and missed the earnings estimates in the past several quarters and analyst expectations remain pessimistic for 2016. The company has plans to win back some ground with exploring the data center segment and launch new products in GPU line, which would allow it to compete better with Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) and NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA). However, the smart money investors are not very keen on Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) and at the end of September only 11 funds from our database held long positions in the company, down from 15 a quarter earlier.

On the following page, we are going to discuss in more detail the other two stocks, Anavex Life Sciences Corp. (NASDAQ:AVXL) and Flamel Technologies S.A. (ADR) (NASDAQ:FLML).

Anavex Life Sciences Corp. (NASDAQ:AVXL) is extending its losses for the third consecutive day, sliding by another 11% on Thursday. A couple of days ago, Anavex Life Sciences Corp. (NASDAQ:AVXL) said that it has received a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission, which, the company believes to be related to the “unusual activity in the market for the Company’s shares”. Earlier today reports emerged stating that the Pomerantz Law Firm plans to pursue a class action lawsuit against Anavex Life Sciences Corp. (NASDAQ:AVXL), alleging that several directors and executives had violated sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Among the funds we track, none has reported holding shares of Anavex Life Sciences Corp.

Finally, shares of Flamel Technologies S.A. (ADR) (NASDAQ:FLML)  have plunged by nearly 13% amid news that the US Food and Drug Administration has approved a Neostigmine Methylsulfate drug, which may compete with Flamel’s existing product, Bloxiverz. The stock has fallen on a trading volume considerably higher than the average, so investors are probably worried about the impact that the competition will have on Flamel’s sales. Bloxiverz represents a Neostigmine Methylsulfate Injection that is used in the operating room to reverse effects of non-depolarizing neuromuscular blocking agents after a surgery and it is one of Flamel Technologies S.A. (ADR) (NASDAQ:FLML)’s key products. A total of 13 funds from our database reported long positions in Flamel Technologies S.A. (ADR) (NASDAQ:FLML) in the last round of 13F filings, amassing nearly 29% of the company’s outstanding stock.

Correction: An earlier version of this article might have suggested that the discussed stocks were down for the entire 2015. It also stated that the subpoena received by Anavex Life Sciences Corp was related to the violation of the sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

Disclosure: none