What You Need to Know About These Hot Stocks

Although the broader market is in the red on Thursday as earnings season rapidly approaches, shares of Lucas Energy, Inc. (NYSEMKT:LEI), Vivint Solar Inc (NYSE:VSLR), Viking Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:VKTX), and SL Industries, Inc. (NYSEMKT:SLI) are bright green. Let’s find out why investors are buying these stocks and examine what the smart money investors in our database think about them.

At Insider Monkey, we track around 785 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 the details here).

Lucas Energy, Inc. (NYSEMKT:LEI) has more than doubled today on news that the company has secured $10 million of equity capital in the form of a redeemable convertible subordinated debenture with a conversion price of $3.25 per share from an institutional investor. The company could receive an additional $5 million more through an exercise of an additional warrant upon mutual consent. CEO Anthony Schnur said, “This placement demonstrates confidence in the future of Lucas Energy, Inc. (NYSEMKT:LEI) as we progress towards closing on the Segundo Resources asset purchase.  Having received this commitment establishes some certainty that we can initiate growth and development activities upon closing the acquisition.” No investors in our database held shares of Lucas Energy as of December 31.

Vivint Solar Inc (NYSE:VSLR) continues to trend higher today after surging past the $3 per share mark yesterday. Although there is no major news concerning the stock, Vivint does plan to host an analyst day on April 14 that could provide investors with more details on how the company plans to deliver value in the solar market. Sunedison Inc (NYSE:SUNE) was originally supposed to purchase Vivint earlier this year but eventually abandoned the deal after experiencing sharp financial and liquidity difficulties. Ten elite funds in our system held roughly 11.1% of Vivint Solar Inc (NYSE:VSLR)’s float at the end of December.

On the next page we examine the latest activity concerning Viking Therapeutics Inc, SL Industries Inc, and Handy & Harman Ltd.