Why Ford, U.S. Bancorp, and Other Stocks Are on Investors’ Radars Today

After falling sharply over the past few trading sessions, crude futures are now in the green as traders position themselves for the upcoming informal OPEC/Russia meeting later this month. Although expectations are low and many believe Iran’s refusal to limit production will again throw a wrench into any positive statement coming out of the meeting, some investors think oil prices will rise in the medium term given the upcoming Saudi Aramco IPO next year.

Among the stocks traders are talking about in addition to crude on Thursday are Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F), U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:USB), Immune Design Corp (NASDAQ:IMDZ), PNC Financial Services Group Inc (NYSE:PNC), and ENSCO PLC (NYSE:ESV). Let’s find out why the five stocks are in the spotlight and see how the funds from our database are positioned towards them.

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Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) is in the spotlight after Presidential candidate Donald Trump criticized the company for its intention to move all of its U.S. small car production (which currently isn’t profitable) to Mexico. Ford management is doing so to cut costs and estimates the move will take around two to three years. Trump said the following:

“We shouldn’t allow it to happen. They’ll make their cars, they’ll employ thousands and thousands of people not from this country and they’ll sell the cars right through our border. No tax, no nothing, and we’ll have nothing but more unemployment in Flint and in Michigan.”

If Trump becomes President, he has said before that he might impose additional taxes on companies that do similar things that hurt the American workers. Of the around 750 funds that we track, 31 had a bullish position in Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) at the end of June.

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Traders are talking about U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:USB) after the bank set long-term financial targets of around 6%-8% for revenue growth, 6%-8% for net income growth, and a rather disappointing return on asset ratio of 1.35%-1.65% (the company targeted 1.6%-1.9% before). In addition, the management also expects to target a return on equity of 13.5%-16.5% in the long run, down from the prior 16%-19%. Traders are a little disheartened at the guidance, and shares of U.S. Bancorp are down around 0.75%. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway owned over 85 million shares in U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:USB) at the end of the second quarter.

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On the next page, we take a closer look at Immune Design Corp, PNC Financial Services Group, and ENSCO PLC.

In contrast to Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC)’s recent promise of limiting some cross selling, PNC Financial Services Group Inc (NYSE:PNC) is going the other way, at least according to this Bloomberg. CEO William Demchak was quoted as saying, “We’re rebuilding the engine here to drive gains and market share, increase cross-sell, and reduce our costs to serve loans. We don’t like to just be an interest rates story”. Unlike Wells Fargo, PNC employees haven’t purportedly created 2 million fake consumer accounts and the bank doesn’t have the media and Congress hounding it at the moment. PNC shares are 0.78% in the green so far today. A total of 45 funds from our database owned $1.36 billion worth of PNC Financial Services Group Inc (NYSE:PNC)’s stock, which accounted for 3.40% of the float at the end of June.

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Immune Design Corp (NASDAQ:IMDZ) shares are off by more than 10% after the company priced its public stock offering of 4.8 million shares at $6.25 a piece. The underwriters of the offering have the 30-day option of buying up to an additional 720,000 shares at the offering price less commissions and discounts. Immune Design plans to use the money raised to fund R&D, product development, and for general corporate/working capital purposes. The number of investors tracked by us with holdings in Immune Design Corp (NASDAQ:IMDZ) inched up by one quarter-over-quarter to seven during the second quarter.

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ENSCO PLC (NYSE:ESV) is trending after Bloomberg published a down-beat article on the industry. Although many in the industry believe utilization rates will bottom by the the middle of 2017, the article’s author thinks a meaningful fundamental rebound could take a long time to materialize. For rig rates to move higher, various analysts estimate that the utilization rate needs to reach 70%-85%, which might only happen if the number of working rigs fall to 120 from 160 currently operating (according to some estimates). In short, a lot needs to go right for offshore companies to do well. As one of the stronger companies in the sector in terms of balance sheet strength, ENSCO does have some time to wait for a recovery. Although whether it might have enough time is an open question. According to our data, ENSCO PLC (NYSE:ESV) was one of the most widely held offshore drillers by the smart money at the end of June, with 30 funds from our database reporting stakes in the stock.

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