Apogee, Apigee and Everything In-Between: The Latest On These 5 Trending Stocks

Despite the relatively small change in the major indexes on Wednesday, many investors are on edge in anticipation of the Federal Reserve FOMC meeting later this month. If interest rates should rise faster than expected, some traders could decide to take profits from what has now been an 8-year bull market.

In this article, we’ll analyze why Aerie Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:AERI), CBS Corporation (NYSE:CBS), Apogee Enterprises Inc (NASDAQ:APOG), Student Transportation Inc (NASDAQ:STB), and Apigee Corp (NASDAQ:APIC) are trending, and see how hedge funds were positioned in them using the latest 13F filing data.

We believe that imitating hedge funds and other large institutional investors can be helpful in identifying stocks capable of outperforming the broader market. Through extensive research that covered portfolios of several hundred large investors between 1999 and 2012, we determined that following the small-cap stocks that large money managers are collectively bullish on, can generate monthly returns nearly 1.0 percentage points above the market (see the details here).

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Aerie Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:AERI) bulls are pretty happy today after the company announced positive top-line efficacy results for its product candidate Roclatan 0.02%/0.005% from a phase 3 trial. According to the company, the drug candidate successfully achieved the primary efficacy endpoint, showing statistical superiority over each of its components. Shares of the company have surged by over 56% in pre-market trading on the news. Of the 749 hedge funds that we track which filed 13Fs for the June quarter, 17 owned $153.4 million worth of Aerie Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:AERI) shares on June 30, which  accounted for 32.80% of the float.

CBS Corporation (NYSE:CBS) may have to wait a little bit longer before it can be considered a credible threat to internet streaming giants such as Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX). According to The Hollywood Reporter, CBS’ new Star Trek series will now launch four months after its original target unveiling of January. One reason for the delay appears to be the drive to make the show as good as possible. Executive producers Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman said:

“We aim to dream big and deliver, and that means making sure the demands of physical and post-production for a show that takes place entirely in space, and the need to meet an air date, don’t result in compromised quality.”

Howard Guberman‘s Gruss Asset Management owned more than 2.2 million shares of CBS Corporation (NYSE:CBS) at the end of June, up by 3% quarter-over-quarter.

On the next page, we’ll examine why Apogee Enterprises, Student Transportation, and Apigee Corp are each in the spotlight this morning.