Here’s Why McCormick & Company, Vale SA, and Three Other Stocks Are on Investors’ Radars Today

After a sharp fall yesterday, the US stock market is recovering today and three major indexes are well in the green. Crude futures, meanwhile, have rallied back after falling more than 1.2% in the red.

Meanwhile, five stocks, McCormick & Company, Incorporated (NYSE:MKC), Vale SA (ADR) (NYSE:VALE), Mosaic Co (NYSE:MOS), Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO), and Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) are trending on the back of different developments. Let’s take a closer look at the news surrounding these stocks and see what the smart money investors from our database think about them.

While there are many metrics that investors can assess in the investment process, the 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 to beat the S&P 500 by around 95 basis points per month (see the details here).

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McCormick & Company, Incorporated (NYSE:MKC) is trending after the company reported fiscal third quarter earnings of $1.03 per share on revenue of $1.09 billion. That positively compares to analyst estimates of a net income of $0.94 per share and sales of $1.09 billion. Overall sales rose by 2.8% year-over-year while the company’s adjusted operating margin inched up 130 basis points to 15.8%. McCormick & Company’s management expects fiscal 2016 adjusted EPS between $3.75 and $3.79 and sales to rise by around 3%. Ken Griffin‘s Citadel Investment Group established a new position of 112,841 shares of McCormick & Company, Incorporated (NYSE:MKC) during the second quarter.

Traders are watching Vale SA (ADR) (NYSE:VALE) and Mosaic Co (NYSE:MOS) after Reuters reported that the former intends to strike a strategic partnership for its fertilizer segment and that Vale’s board did not discuss a potential sale of its fertilizers unit during a Thursday meeting. That is in direct contrast to some reports from local newspapers, which said that a sale of the fertilizer segment would be approved at that meeting. Mosaic has held talks about potentially buying a big piece of Vale’s fertilizer business in the past. A total of 19 funds tracked by Insider Monkey amassed 4.10% of Mosaic Co (NYSE:MOS)’s float and 24 funds held around 1% of Vale SA (ADR) (NYSE:VALE)’s float on June 30.

Click next to see why  Yahoo and Verizon Communications are trending.
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) and Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) are in the spotlight after the New York Post disclosed several interesting bits of new information. In the article, the Post writes that sources have told the paper that the SEC has begun investigating whether Yahoo properly disclosed the 500-million-account breach to its shareholders, and that Verizon has set aside some money in reserve to cover any liabilities that might arise from the data theft. According to a source, Verizon could potentially have set aside as much as $1 billion for the liability, while other sources say that the telecom has set aside a sum closer to $125 million. In any case, Verizon potentially setting aside some money indicates that the company still wants to buy Yahoo’s core assets, which is good news for shareholders. However, whether Verizon will want to knock the purchase price down a bit is an open question. In addition, sources have told the paper that Yahoo didn’t disclose the hack earlier because the ‘FBI had become involved’ (and could have potentially wanted some more time to investigate before the public knew).

Out of the 749 top funds that we track, 81 funds were long Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) and 52 funds held shares of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) at the end of the second quarter.

Disclosure: None