Stocks Driving Tuesday’s Market Gains Include Sprint (S), Coach (COH), and Swift Transportation (SWFT)

Swift Transportation Co (NYSE:SWFT) is also trading up by more than 16% this afternoon. The small-cap company reported its fourth quarter financial results after the market closed on Monday, comfortably beating estimates on the earnings front, while delivering sales almost in-line with expectations. Earnings came in at $0.53 per share, versus the Street’s consensus estimate of $0.47 per share. Revenue of $1.09 billion fell only slightly short of expectations, which called for $1.11 billion in sales.

According to the company, the positive results were aided by “lower costs from fewer accidents and insurance claims, improved freight rates and fewer empty loads carried by the company’s drivers,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

Probably happy with Swift Transportation Co (NYSE:SWFT)’s results was Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, which disclosed on November 17 that it had boosted its stake in the company to more than 4.65 million shares, or almost 3.3% of the total shares, from just 548,054 shares held previously.

Another big gainer on Tuesday is Sprint Corp (NYSE:S), up by more than 20% in the afternoon hours, after surprising the Street with a smaller-than-expected quarterly loss and a raise in its earnings outlook. According to the management team, the results were helped by cost-cutting initiatives and a large increase in “postpaid” subscribers, the most lucrative for the company.

Sprint Corp (NYSE:S) really needed a boost. Between the beginning of the year and Monday evening, the stock had lost more than 30% as the company continued to struggle to turn around its business. Now, some of the Sprint bears, like William B. Gray’s Orbis Investment Management might be regretting having taken a pessimistic stance. The firm was the largest Sprint investor in our files as of the end of the second quarter of 2015; however, over the third quarter, it trimmed its position in the carrier by 89%, to 7.76 million shares.

Finally, there’s Coach Inc (NYSE:COH), which is up by roughly 11% today after beating analyst expectations with its financial results for the second quarter of fiscal year 2016, released before the market opened. “We drove further sequential improvement in our North America bricks and mortar business – led, as expected, by our retail stores, while our outlet store channel also strengthened against a backdrop of lower tourist traffic and a highly promotional environment,” CEO Victor Luis explained in a statement.

Jim Cramer characterized the results as a “game changer”, and this might have an impact on hedge fund sentiment going forward; institutional investors had not been particularly bullish on Coach Inc (NYSE:COH) recently. Over the third quarter of 2015, the number of hedge funds in our database long the retailer fell by 22.8% to 27. However, the good news might lead to a sentiment reversion.

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