Why These 5 Stocks Are Making Noise Today

With the oil strike in Kuwait entering its third day, crude oil futures are near monthly highs and not surprisingly the S&P 500 future is also within striking distance of its all-time high. Among the stocks making moves in this optimistic market are Panera Bread Co (NASDAQ:PNRA), eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY), Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX), Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT), and Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN), though not all of them are moving in the right direction. Let’s examine why each stock is making noise this morning and see what the world’s greatest investors think of each stock.

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Analysts Give Thumbs Up to Panera

Panera Bread Co (NASDAQ:PNRA) is 2.23% higher this morning after analysts at Jefferies upgraded the stock to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’, citing increasing comparable sales growth. Analysts at KeyBanc also bumped up their rating on the restaurant chain to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Sector Weight’. Investors are hoping that the analysts are right when the company reports its earnings on the 26th of this month. The smart money isn’t as enthusiastic about the chain. 18 funds in our system owned $578.9 million worth of Panera Bread Co (NASDAQ:PNRA)’s shares on December 31, down from 23 funds with $689.41 million in Panera holdings on September 30. Christian Leone‘s Luxor Capital Group held 838,249 Panera shares at the end of 2015.

Analyst Downgrade Sends eBay Lower

On the other hand, eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) shares are 2.71% in the red today after analysts at Morgan Stanley lowered their rating on the e-commerce website to ‘Underweight’ from ‘Equal-weight’. The analysts lowered their rating because they don’t think eBay has as much growth as bulls of company do. The Morgan Stanley analysts also worry about Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)‘s presence, which is growing larger every day. Our data shows that many smart money investors still like eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY). 72 funds that we track owned shares of the company at the end of December, with the funds owning 8.5% of the float. Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management owned more than 6.7 million eBay shares at the end of 2015.

On the next page we examine why Netflix Inc is collapsing, as well as check in on Target Corporation and Illumina Inc.