Why Outerwall, Twitter, and 3 Other Stocks Are Turning Heads Today

It’s a red day on Wall Street, as all three indexes are moderately lower in morning trading. The Dow Jones is off by almost 100 points, the S&P 500 is 0.44% in the red, and the Nasdaq is off by 0.19% as traders worry about falling crude prices and weak global macro-economic conditions.

In this article, we’ll take a look at five stocks in the spotlight this morning and dig into SEC filings to determine what the smart money thinks of each stock. Those stocks are Bank of Hawaii Corporation (NYSE:BOH), Eagle Materials, Inc. (NYSE:EXP), Outerwall Inc (NASDAQ:OUTR), E*TRADE Financial Corp (NASDAQ:ETFC), and Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR).

Through extensive research, we determined that imitating some of the picks of hedge funds and other institutional investors can help generate market-beating returns over the long run. The key is to focus on the small-cap picks of these investors, since they are usually less followed by the broader market and are less price-efficient. Our backtests that covered the period between 1999 and 2012, showed that following the 15 most popular small-caps among hedge funds can help a retail investor beat the market by an average of 95 basis points per month (see the details here).

Bank of Hawaii Reports Earnings

Bank of Hawaii Corporation (NYSE:BOH) shares are 1.3% in the green after the bank reported earnings of $1.03 per share on sales of $150.07 million for the second quarter, beating the average analyst estimates by $0.10 per share and $0.94 million respectively. Sales rose by 4.4% year-over-year as loan and lease balance jumped by 12.2%. Book value per common share was $26.96, up from $24.88 a year earlier. Look for shares of the company to do well if interest rates rise. Cliff Asness‘ AQR Capital Management reported owning a stake of over 126,000 shares of Bank of Hawaii Corporation (NYSE:BOH) as of the end of March.

Eagle Materials Releases Results

Eagle Materials, Inc. (NYSE:EXP) turned in a strong first quarter of fiscal year 2017, reporting earnings of $0.93 per share on record sales of $297.5 million. Shares of the company are 1.7% higher as the results exceeded the consensus estimates by $0.07 per share and $2.01 million respectively. Cash flow from operations rose by 162% year-over-year and EBIT jumped by 18% to $17.2 million as demand for cement, concrete and aggregates was strong. The company also bought back 525,000 shares of common stock in the quarter. 30 hedge funds in our system were long Eagle Materials, Inc. (NYSE:EXP) as of March 31.

On the next page we’ll check out why Outerwall Inc, E*TRADE Financial Corp, and Twitter Inc are trending this morning.