These Four Stocks Are Gaining Ground for Different Reasons

With markets almost flat on Monday afternoon, a number of companies jumped earlier today and have thus far kept their momentum throughout the day. We have previously discussed some of the top gainers on Monday (see article) and in this piece, we are going to take a look at four other companies whose stocks are growing today, including TASER International, Inc. (NASDAQ:TASR), YPF SA (ADR) (NYSE:YPF), Northern Tier Energy LP (NYSE:NTI), and Merit Medical Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:MMSI).

Let’s start with TASER International, Inc. (NASDAQ:TASR), whose stock is 6% in the green so far today, amid the company announcing a new partnership agreement with Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), which involves developing a cloud platform for the law enforcement company that will feature Microsoft Azure’s cloud platform and TASER’s Axon Platform in combination with Windows 10 devices. TASER International, Inc. (NASDAQ:TASR)’s stock was gaining ground for the first half of the year, but then fell amid a broader market sell-off and including today’s appreciation is down by 10% year-to-date. According to our data, which involves analyzing the equity portfolios of some 700 funds, the sentiment towards TASER International is weak, with only 18 investors reporting stakes equal to around 7% of the company’s outstanding stock as of the end of June. However, in the current round of 13F filings, Louis Navellier’s Navellier & Associates reported a stake containing 501,435 shares, which was increased by 482,355 shares during the third quarter, so perhaps this will be the start of a swing in sentiment towards the company.

Why do we think it’s important to see what hedge funds think about a particular stock? The reason is simple, we believe that this data can allow us to benefit from the expertise that hedge funds employ while assessing their next investment. Our focus are the best small-cap ideas among the funds we track, as we determined that they can provide the highest returns. The Insider Monkey small-cap strategy involves imitating the 15 most popular stocks among these funds and it has returned 102% since August 2012, beating the market by 53 percentage points (see more details here).

With this in mind, let’s move on to YPF SA (ADR) (NYSE:YPF), which is trading nearly 8% higher today. YPF SA (ADR) (NYSE:YPF) is one of Argentina’s top companies and it was not the only Argentina-based company whose stock rallied today. The rally was most likely sparked by the outcome of yesterday’s presidential election in the country, which ended up in a run-off scheduled for November, where two candidates, Daniel Scioli, a successor of the current president Cristina Kirchner, will face Mauricio Macri, the mayor of Buenos Aires. The stocks rallied as investors are betting on an end to the economic turmoil and capital controls that came during the 12-year rule by Nestor and Cristina Kirchner. The outcome of Sunday’s elections also sparked the growth of the Argentinian peso and bonds. Among the funds from our database, 34 held long positions in YPF SA at the end of June, which were equal to 11% of the company.

Read on to see the details about why Northern Tier Energy LP (NYSE:NTI) and Merit Medical Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:MMSI) are in the green today.

Northern Tier Energy LP (NYSE:NTI) jumped by some 8% after the bell and has kept that momentum on the back of Western Refining, Inc. (NYSE:WNR)’s bid to buy it for $17.50 in cash and 0.2266 of its common shares, in a deal worth $1.6 billion. Western Refining already owns 38% of Northern Tier Energy LP, and including the 15% premium, the deal has a high chance to succeed. Northern Tier’s stock has gained 18% since the beginning of the year, and since it’s a Master Limited Partnership, it pays high dividends, as evidenced by its stock sporting a yield of over 16%.

Merit Medical Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:MMSI) has appreciated by some 12% today, which partly offset its 25% drop on Friday. The drop came on the back of Merit’s financial results for the third quarter, which included revenue of $136 million, up by 6% on the year and EPS of $0.20 (non-GAAP), down from $0.25 reported a year earlier. Moreover, the revenue missed the estimates of $137.8 million, while the EPS met the expectations. However, the stock is still up by 15% year-to-date and earlier today Barrington Research upgraded the stock to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Market Perform’, with a $22.00 price target on it. On the other hand, among the funds from our database, Merit Medical Systems has been a rather unpopular stock, since only 18 funds reported stakes equal to 8% of the company’s outstanding stock at the end of June. During the third quarter, billionaire Ken Fisher‘s Fisher Asset Management initiated a stake in Merit Medical Systems, Inc., reporting a stake containing 147,755 shares in its latest 13F.

Disclosure: None