Why Are These Five Stocks Tumbling on Tuesday?

Shares of Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX) were trading down by more than 8.4% on Tuesday afternoon on news of a new SEC investigation into the company – which management has known about for more than a couple of months. On Monday, the company announced that it was rescheduling the release of its fourth quarter financial report and withdrawing its previously issued 2016 guidance – on the same day as CEO J. Michael Pearson returned to the company.

While Andrew Left of Citron Research is pleased with the stream of negative developments surrounding Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX), other funds, including Bill Ackman‘s Pershing Square, Jeffrey Ubben’s Valueact Capital and 81 other firms in our database are aching. Pershing disclosed ownership of more than 30.71 million shares of the company in early February; Valueact last said it held 14.99 million shares of  Valeant as of December 31.

Next up is Pepco Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:POM), whose stock has inched down by 7% on Tuesday trading after the District of Columbia’s rate-payer advocate said she would not approve of a merger with Exelon Corporation (NYSE:EXC), which had offered $6.8 billion to buy Pepco. The People’s Counsel argued that, under the proposed agreement, there is no way to assure that rates for residential rate-payers won’t see increases through March 2019.

Shares of Pepco Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:POM) have now entered negative territory, having lost more than 6.5% since the beginning of the year. Meanwhile, Dmitry Balyasny‘s Balyasny Asset Management sold all of its 900,300 shares and put options underlying around 500,000 shares during the fourth quarter.

Finally, there’s Marathon Oil Corporation (NYSE:MRO), whose stock has declined 3.7% in the afternoon trading, after the company announced a public offering of 135 million shares of common stock and an additional 20.25 million shares for underwriters on late Monday. The combined value of the offering amounts to $1.3 billion, which will be used to strengthen the company balance sheet and “for general corporate purposes, including funding a portion of its capital program,” the company declared in a statement.

The largest hedge fund investor in Marathon Oil Corporation (NYSE:MRO), among those we track, is William B. Gray’s Orbis Investment Management, which disclosed ownership of 5.68 million shares, worth more than $71.57 million in its 13F filing for the end of the fourth quarter. 

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