The markets are trading slightly higher on Monday as several stocks are fueling its move on the back of different developments. Earlier today, five companies issued press releases outlining their latest financial results, including Visa Inc (NYSE:V), Clorox Co (NYSE:CLX), Estee Lauder Companies Inc (NYSE:EL), HSBC Holdings plc (ADR) (NYSE:HSBC), and Towers Watson & Co (NASDAQ:TW). Therefore, in this article we will take a closer look at the results and see how the market reacted to the news.
leungchopan/Shutterstock.com
In addition, we will take a look at the smart money activity surrounding each of these companies by looking at the data from the 13F filings of over 730 funds we have in our database. Large money managers usually employ a lot of resources in order to identify the most profitable opportunities and by following the stocks they are collectively bullish on, we can also benefit from their insight. For example, the 15 most popular small-cap stocks, around which our investment strategy is focused, have returned 102% since August 2012, beating the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by around 53 percentage points (see more details here).
Without any further ado, let’s take a look at the results revealed by the five companies outlined above. On the first spot is Visa Inc (NYSE:V), which has reported its financial results for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2015. The company delivered net income of $2.62 per share for the full year, up by 16% compared to fiscal year 2014, while for the fourth quarter, its EPS amounted to $0.62, up by 44% year-over-year. Visa Inc (NYSE:V)’s revenue for the fourth quarter and the full year also went up to $3.57 billion and $13.88 billion, respectively. Visa’s fourth quarter results missed the EPS estimate of $0.63, while revenue was slightly higher-than-expected. The company also announced the acquisition of Visa Europe in a $23-billion deal and a new buyback program of $5 billion. The market reacted negatively to the worse-than-expected earnings and sent the stock down by nearly 4% in morning trading. Still, among the funds we track, Visa Inc (NYSE:V) is a very popular stock, being included in the equity portfolios of 98 funds, which held 4.80% of its stock at the end of June. Among them was billionaire Ken Fisher‘s Fisher Asset Management, which further increased its stake in the third quarter, reporting ownership of 14.63 million shares as of the end of September.
Next in line is Clorox Co (NYSE:CLX), which reported its fiscal year 2016 first quarter results this morning, which resulted in its stock moving 4% into the green today. The company posted EPS of $1.31 per share, up from $0.68 a year earlier and revenue of $1.39 billion, versus $1.35 billion last year. In this way, the company also managed to beat the estimates of $1.18 in EPS and $1.38 billion in revenue. For the full 2016 fiscal year, Clorox Co (NYSE:CLX) anticipates delivering EPS in the range of $4.68-to-$4.83, in line with the consensus analyst estimate. Among the funds from our database, only 27 held stakes in Clorox Co (NYSE:CLX) that amassed 5.30% of the company’s stock at the end of June.
Three more trending stocks are discussed on the following page.
