American Express Company (AXP), Rockwell Collins Inc. (COL) & More: Here’s Why These Stocks Are Trending Today

Markets shrugged off the negative trend and are trading well in the green today amid news that World Trade Organization’s has slashed its world trade forecast to the lowest since global financial crisis.

Meanwhile, a number of stocks are in the spotlight in connection with different developments. Among these stocks are American Express Company (NYSE:AXP), Rockwell Collins Inc. (NYSE:COL), Mylan NV (NASDAQ:MYL), Juno Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:JUNO), and Novo Nordisk (ADR) (NYSE:NVO). Let’s take a closer look at the news impacting these stocks and see what the investors from our database think about them.

An everyday investor doesn’t have the same resources and capabilities to analyze different publicly-traded companies as hedge funds do. This is why it is a good idea to see what stocks hedge funds like the most and try to imitate some of their bullish moves in an attempt to reap market-beating returns. At Insider Monkey, we follow the activity of several hundred of the best-performing hedge funds as part of our strategy. We analyze their 13F filings and use the data to see what stocks they are collectively bullish on. Through extensive research we have determined that the best approach to outperform the broader indices is to follow hedge funds into their top small-cap ideas. In our backtests, a portfolio of the 15 most popular small-cap stocks generated monthly alpha of 81 basis points, versus 0.7 percentage points posted by hedge funds’ top large- and mega-cap picks (see more details here).

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American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) has announced increase in its dividend earlier today. The company will now pay a quarterly dividend of $0.32 per share, up by 10%. In addition, American Express Company has approved a new buyback program of 150 million shares, which replaces its earlier plan which still had about 50 million shares remaining. Among the funds we track, 48 funds held $12.59 billion worth of American Express Company’s stock in aggregate at the end of June, having amassed 21.80% of its outstanding stock; there’s not been much change from the previous quarter.

Rockwell Collins Inc. (NYSE:COL) is in the spotlight after the company reported a new agreement signed with Stellar Labs, under the terms of which both companies will co-develop a cloud-based platform offering an end-to-end aircraft management solution through mobile devices, tablets and web browsers, Rockwell said in a statement. This disruptive technology is based on Rockwell Collins’ ARINCDirect® Flight Operations System (FOS®) and will replace the currently disparate storage methodology of aviation systems. The number of funds from our hedge fund database long Rockwell Collins was at 17 in the quarter ending June. The total value of their holdings stood at $77 million, in comparison to $120 million held by 18 funds at the end of previous quarter. This is almost 0.70% of its outstanding stocks.

Mylan NV (NASDAQ:MYL) yesterday admitted that its profit for EpiPens is higher than what it reported to Congress earlier. In a statement, the company said that its actual pre-tax profits are 60% higher than the numbers presented to the Congress. Mylan has been mired in controversy after Hillary Clinton spoke against price gouging tactics in the pharma industry, especially EpiPen’s exorbitant price as a delivery system of a low cost drug. A total of 44  funds from our database have positions in Mylan with a total value of $196 million as of the end of June, which represents about 9% of its outstanding stock.

Juno Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:JUNO) stock soared on the news of its competitor Kite Pharma receiving better than expected results from Phase II study of Kite’s KTE-C19, which showed 47% complete remission (CR) for patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Juno is also active in large B-cell lymphoma market. Its CAR-T technology is among 3-4 biotech firms developing this cutting edge area of medicine. At the end of June, 11 funds we track held about $38.9 million worth of Juno Therapeutics stock in aggregate, compared to 14 funds holding stock worth $32 million a quarter earlier.

Novo Nordisk A/S (ADR) (NYSE:NVO) has announced that it had initiated a share repurchase program on August 5. The buyback is part of the broader, DKK 14 billion ($2.1 billion), share repurchase program to be executed for a 12-month period starting February 2016. It involves the repurchase of DKK 3.4 billion ($500 million) worth of stock and overs the period between August 5 to October 26. The number of funds from our database long Novo Nordisk remained unchanged at 12 during the second quarter, while the total value of their holdings amounted to $1.4 billion at the end of June.

Disclosure: none