Why 2U, Take-Two, Acadia, Air Lease and Acxiom Are Making Headlines Today

U.S. stock indexes are up substantially in Friday trading, with the S&P 500 hitting record highs, driven by a surprisingly strong jobs report out of the U.S. Financial stocks are having a particularly strong day, rising by 1.5%, with bank stocks gaining nearly 3%.

Among the individual stocks on the move today are 2U Inc (NASDAQ:TWOU), Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO), ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:ACAD), Air Lease Corp (NYSE:AL) and Acxiom Corporation (NASDAQ:ACXM), all of which reported their latest quarterly results after the market close yesterday. In this article we’ll take a look at those companies performed and how their stocks are reacting to that performance, as well as see what the funds in our database think about these stocks.

At Insider Monkey, we track around 765 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).

2U Sinks On Poor Guidance

Let’s start with 2U Inc (NASDAQ:TWOU), which has lost almost 3.3% in Friday trading, even though the company delivered top- and bottom-line beats on Thursday afternoon. The firm reported a second quarter net loss of $0.09 per share, $0.03 better than anticipated, on revenue of $49.1 million, which was up by more than 39% year-over-year, and $610K above the Street’s consensus estimate. However, guidance fell short of expectations. For the third quarter of the year, 2U’s management said that it envisions revenue of $49.9 million-to-$50.4 million, missing analysts’ target of $50.5 million.

As of the end of the first quarter, ten funds among those that we track were long 2U Inc (NASDAQ:TWOU). Among them was Columbus Circle Investors, which disclosed ownership of 1.12 million shares of the company.

Take-Two Interactive Spikes On Strong GTA, NBA Sales

Opposite to 2U, Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO) is trading up by about 2.75% on Friday after the release yesterday afternoon of the company’s first quarter of fiscal year 2017 earnings report. The videogame maker delivered a net loss of $0.21 on revenue of $272.56 million for the quarter, beating the Street’s consensus targets by $0.08 and $13.14 million, respectively thanks to a strong performance from its Grand Theft Auto and NBA 2K franchises. For the ongoing quarter, management envisions adjusted EPS of $0.35-to-$0.45, well above the estimate of $0.22, and sales of $375 million-to-$425 million, also well ahead of expectations of $338 million.

42 funds among those that we track held long equity stakes in Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO) at the end of March. The largest one was that of Ricky Sandler’s Eminence Capital, which owned 4.82 million shares when the first quarter came to a close.

We’ll check out the quarterly results of three other companies on the next page.