Earnings Results Have These 5 Stocks On The Move Today

All three index futures along with crude are slightly lower today as traders digest the latest corporate earnings reports. In this article we’ll take a closer look at the earnings results of five notable companies during their latest quarter, those being Equity Lifestyle Properties, Inc. (NYSE:ELS), Steel Dynamics, Inc. (NASDAQ:STLD), IDEX Corporation (NYSE:IEX), Brown & Brown, Inc. (NYSE:BRO), and Rambus Inc. (NASDAQ:RMBS). We’ll also peer into hedge fund filings to determine how the world’s greatest investors are positioned in the five equities.

At Insider Monkey, we track around 765 hedge funds and institutional investors. Through extensive backtests, we have determined that imitating some of the stocks that these investors are collectively bullish on, can help retail investors generate double digits of alpha per year. The key is to focus on the small-cap picks of these funds, which are usually less followed by the broader market and allow for larger price inefficiencies (see the details here).

Equity Lifestyle’s FFO Exceeds Estimate

Equity Lifestyle Properties, Inc. (NYSE:ELS) reported FFO of $0.75 per share for the second quarter, beating the estimate by $0.01 per share. Revenue was $210.1 million, up by 4.3% year-over-year. Core property operating revenue excluding deferrals inched up by 4.2%, while core income from property operations excluding deferrals and property management rose by 6.1% year-over-year. On June 1, the company also completed the acquisition of a 1,168-site property located in Florida for $75.2 million and the assumption of mortgage debt of $22.6 million. Jim Simons‘ Renaissance Technologies owned 1.03 million shares of Equity Lifestyle Properties, Inc. (NYSE:ELS) at the end of March, up by 19% from the size of the fund’s holding at the end of December.

Steel Dynamics Reports Mixed Results 

Steel Dynamics, Inc. (NASDAQ:STLD) earned $0.58 per share on revenue of $2.02 billion for the second quarter, beating the bottom-line estimate by $0.02 per share but missing the top-line consensus mark by $20 million. Consolidated operating earnings rose by 94% sequentially to $256 million, led by continued momentum in the flat roll steel supply sector. Meanwhile, import levels of flat roll steel have dropped and inventory levels are more in-line with demand requirements. These two factors have led to healthier utilization rates and generally higher margins. Nonetheless, shares are down by 3.5% in pre-market trading today. ClearBridge‘s Legg Mason Capital Management reported owning a stake of 4.83 million Steel Dynamics shares as of March 31.

On the next page we’ll take a closer look at the results reported by IDEX Corporation, Brown & Brown Inc, and Rambus Inc.

IDEX Beats Estimates

IDEX Corporation (NYSE:IEX) turned in EPS of $0.99 on revenue of $549.7 million for the second quarter, beating the consensus marks by $0.06 per share and $4.75 million respectively. Sales rose by 6.8% year-over-year, aided by year-over-year order growth of 5%. Gross margin and operating margin fell by 60 and 70 basis points respectively, to 44.4% and 20.6%, mainly due to a pre-tax inventory step-up charge related to the company’s Akron Brass acquisition. Management expects full year EPS of $3.70-to-$3.75 and flat organic growth, along with operating margin of 20.5%-to-21.0%. Those numbers are generally consistent with previous guidance. Of the 766 active funds that we track, 14 owned $234.09 million of IDEX Corporation (NYSE:IEX) shares on March 31, which accounted for 3.70% of the float.

Brown & Brown Reports Earnings

Insurer Brown & Brown, Inc. (NYSE:BRO) delivered second quarter EPS of $0.49 on sales of $446.5 million, beating the consensus analyst estimates by $0.05 per share and $6.2 million respectively. Total sales rose by 6.5% year-over-year, while organic revenue was positive in all four of the company’s divisions, growing by 2.6% overall. Shares of the company have rallied by 12% year-to-date. Based on our database of top investors, 14 hedge funds owned shares of Brown & Brown, Inc. (NYSE:BRO) at the end of the first quarter, down by three from the end of 2015.

Rambus Earnings Top Estimates

Rambus Inc. (NASDAQ:RMBS) reported EPS of $0.15 on sales of $76.5 million for the second quarter, topping the consensus EPS estimate of $0.13 and revenue estimates of $74.4 million. Revenue rose by 5% sequentially and year-over-year, led by higher sales from security technology development projects. During the second quarter, the company signed agreements to buy IP assets from Snowbush, to acquire Inphi Corporation (NYSE:IPHI)’s Memory Interconnect business, and to protect pay TV content for Dish TV India. For the third quarter of 2016, Rambus management expects revenue to come in between $75 million and $80 million. The number of funds in our database with holdings in Rambus Inc. (NASDAQ:RMBS) rose by two quarter-over-quarter to ten as of the end of March.

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