A Look at Five Stocks on the Move on Monday

Main US indexes are trading higher on Monday and have recorded new intraday highs on the back of higher oil prices, which gave a boost to energy stocks.

Meanwhile, among the stocks that are in the spotlight are Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX), Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Xylem Inc (NYSE:XYL), and Live Ventures Inc (NASDAQ:LIVE). In this article, let’s take a closer look at the latest developments surrounding these stocks, as well as assess the smart money sentiment towards them.

While there are many metrics that investors can assess in the investment process, hedge fund sentiment is something that is often overlooked. However, hedge funds and other institutional investors allocate significant resources while making their bets and their long-term focus makes them the perfect investors to emulate. This is supported by our research, which determined that following the small-cap stocks that hedge funds are collectively bullish on can help a smaller investor beat the S&P 500 by around 95 basis points per month (see more details here).

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Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX)’s stock has gained 6% after Mizuho upgraded the stock to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Underperform’ and increased the price target to $25 from $11. Mizuho’s Irina R. Koffler does not expect the stock to fall further, even if the company misses its guidance in the next earnings reports. The analyst also appreciated the management’s steps in divesting its non-core assets for $8 billion at EBITDA multiples of 11x.

Shares of Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) are trading up by 6.45% after the New York Times reported that the company is in discussions with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) regarding the launch of its Twitter app on Apple TV. If a deal is signed, millions of Apple TV users will be able to watch National Football League (NFL). Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) has got the rights for live streaming of 10 Thursday-night NFL games and agreed to pay $10 million and will sell exclusively only a portion of the ad inventory. Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management held 11.31 million shares of Apple at the end of June, while Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies owned 3.16 million shares of Twitter.

Water and wastewater applications company Xylem Inc (NYSE:XYL) announced that it will acquire Sensus (a smart meter company) for $1.7 billion in a all cash deal. Sensus had revenues of $837 million at the end of March and spread across the US, UK, Germany, Slovakia, and China. The deal is expected to be accretive to Xylem’s earnings in 2017. At the end of the second quarter, Mario Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors owned 3.97 million shares of Xylem.

Finally, Live Ventures Inc (NASDAQ:LIVE)’s stock is around 10% in the green after the company posted fiscal third quarter revenue of $20 million, up from just $3.0 million reported a year earlier. Moreover, it turned to a profit of $0.79 per share, from a loss of $0.26 per share reported for the third quarter of fiscal 2015. “We are thrilled with the results from our third quarter.  We increased sales, and focus on our search for additional acquisitions and managing our core business,” said Jon Isaac, CEO of Live Ventures Incorporated.

Disclosure: None