Here’s Why Microsoft, Apple, Adobe Systems, Alphabet, and More Are Trending

In early pre-market trading, the major index futures are green today as traders look forward to today’s current account balance release along with the API inventory numbers. Crude futures are up 0.86% and the S&P 500 future has inched up 0.16%. In this article, let’s analyze the news causing Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ:ADBE), Wal-Mart Stores Inc (NYSE:WMT), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), and Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) to each trend. Let’s also examine how smart money funds were positioned in each stock at the end of the fourth quarter.

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Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ:ADBE) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) have formed an alliance to better compete against Oracle, Salesforce, and others in the sales and marketing sector. Specifically, Adobe will work with the giant from Redmond to form a shared data format between Microsoft sales software, Microsoft Dynamics, and its own marketing software, Adobe Experience Cloud. Microsoft VP Scott Guthrie said, ““It’s going to enable to customers to go beyond the current (software) silos they have to navigate today”. Bulls hope the alliance will help unlock more revenue growth for both companies. Of the 742 elite funds we track, 126 and 54 were long Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ:ADBE) at the end of Q4.

A few quarters after acquiring Jet.com and investing in major Indian and Chinese e-commerce companies, Wal-Mart Stores Inc (NYSE:WMT) is doing even more to beef up its e-commerce operations. In its quest to compete against Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Wal-Mart recently announced that it will launch an innovation hub named Store No 8 in Silicon Valley to invest in start-ups, VCs, and others. Store No 8 will focus on important future growth areas such as augmented reality, robots and AI, among other things. 54 elite funds were long Wal-Mart Stores Inc (NYSE:WMT) as of the most recent 13-F reporting period, down 17 funds from the previous quarter.

On the next page, we find out why the spotlight is shining on  Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc.

Traders are watching Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) after Bloomberg reported that the company is working on several augmented reality (AR) products, including potentially AR glasses, with some AR features likely to be incorporated into future iPhones sooner rather than later. Apple has spent a lot of resources to hire a talented team to work on AR software and hardware and the payoff could be substantial — analysts expect demand for augmented reality products to skyrocket to as much as $165 billion by 2024. 113 top funds were long Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) at the end of the fourth quarter, down 32 funds from the previous quarter.

Last but not least, Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) issued a public mea culpa to advertisers over ads that were shown along side some YouTube videos suggesting ant-semitic messages. The fiasco caused several major brands to pull ad content from Alphabet’s YouTube division in the U.K. To prevent the problem from occurring again, Alphabet will hire more staff and tighten safeguards. Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global was one of the top holders of (NASDAQ:GOOG) at the end of December.

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