5 Notable NASDAQ Names Notched 52-Week Highs on Monday

Ahead of an important Fed meeting, the markets are in positive territory. On the other hand, US housing sector activity dipped more than expected in the month of August. Market is likely to be impacted by both events.

In this article, we will take a look at five NASDAQ stocks that registered their 52-week-highs on Monday, particularly Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT),Activision Blizzard Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI), Cepheid (NASDAQ:CPHD), NetApp Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP), and Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ:SYMC). Moreover, we are going to assess the hedge fund sentiment towards each of these stocks.

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).

Joao Virissimo/Shutterstock.com

Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT)’s stock went up to its 52-week high of $30.78 on Monday and closed at $30.30 amid an analyst update from Citigroup, which set its price target on the stock at $37 and reaffirmed its ‘Buy’ rating. The company has recently announced the extension of its research collaboration with the Centre of Excellence in Advanced Packaging in Singapore, which will remain active for five more years. Their joint work will deal with Fan-Out Wafer Level Packaging, which is an important technology in the semiconductor industry and it helps to reduce the size of chips and other devices. Among the funds we track, 47 funds held $1.8 billion worth of Applied Materials ‘s stock in aggregate at the end of June, having amassed 6.90% of its outstanding stock, compared to 39 investors that held $963 million worth of shares a quarter earlier.

Activision Blizzard Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI)’s stock also touched its 52-week high of $44.84 on Monday. Recently, the company has announced the release of next installment of its highly-anticipated action shooter game Destiny. The number of funds from our database long Activision Blizzard stood at 68 at the end of the second quarter, while the total value of their holdings amounted to at $4.10 billion, which is significantly higher than $2.19 billion held by 52 funds at the end of the previous quarter.

Cepheid (NASDAQ:CPHD) stock is showing a slight pullback today, after having registered its 52-week high of $53.91 in the previous trading session. The stock has been hovering around the $53 since the beginning of September, when Danaher announced that it will acquire Cepheid for $53 per share in a deal worth $4 billion, including debt. In other news, the company has recently announced the expansion of its Molecular C. Difficile Xpert assay, which it claimed can help in easier detection of lethal Clostridium difficile strains through expanded reporting of binary toxin (CDT) gene. Among the funds we track, 17 funds held $104 million worth of Cepheid’s stock in aggregate at the end of June, having amassed 4.70% of its outstanding stock, compared to 13 investors that held $99 million worth of shares a quarter earlier.

NetApp Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) spiked to its 52-week high of $36.09 on Monday in relatively active trading with a volume of 3.40 million shares, close to its 30-day average. Recently, NetApp has started a collaboration with Engage, the technology division of nonprofit Inland Northwest Health Services, under the terms of which NetApp Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) will help the division by providing a cost-efficient solution for maintaining their critical patient data. The number of funds from our database long NetApp went down to 19 from 24 during the second quarter, while the total value of their holdings declined to $174 million from $187 million.

Finally, there’s Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ:SYMC), which advanced to its 52-week high of $25.36 yesterday after analysts at Barclay’s issued a note in which they increased their price target to $26 from $24 and maintained their Equal Weight rating. In other news, the company has recently included in the Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index and the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for the ninth consecutive year. Symantec is a leading company in cyber security segment. Among the funds we track, 38 funds held $1.23 billion worth of Symantec’s stock at the end of June, having amassed 9.90% of its outstanding stock, compared to 33 investors that held $835 million worth of shares a quarter earlier.

Disclosure: none