Here’s Why These Five Stocks Are in the Spotlight

A spate of earnings reports have done little to move the indexes much in either direction today, as broader index volatility remains low.

In this article, we’ll examine why Godaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY), Crown Castle International Corp (NYSE:CCI), Baker Hughes Incorporated (NYSE:BHI), Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX), and Johnson Controls International plc Ordinary Share (NYSE:JCI) are trending this morning. We’ll also use 13F data to determine how successful hedge funds have been trading the five equities.

At Insider Monkey, we track over 750 hedge funds, whose quarterly 13F filings we analyze and determine their collective sentiment towards several thousand stocks. However, our research has shown that the best strategy is to follow hedge funds into their small-cap picks. This approach can allow monthly returns of nearly 95 basis points above the market, as we determined through extensive backtests covering the period between 1999 and 2012 (see the details).

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Godaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY) shares are in the red after James Cakmak of Monness Crespi downgraded the stock to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’. Although he expects solid results from the company’s upcoming earnings report, Cakmak sees limited upside due to the company’s valuation. Godaddy shares are up by more than 11% year-to-date so far. Of the 749 hedge funds that we track which filed 13Fs for the June quarter, 23 funds owned $1.07 billion worth of Godaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY) shares on June 30, which accounted for 21.40% of the float.

Crown Castle International Corp (NYSE:CCI) is in the spotlight after the company agreed to buy FPL FiberNet Holdings, LLC and certain other subsidiaries of NextEra Energy Inc (NYSE:NEE) for $1.5 billion in cash. Crown Castle’s management expects the deal to be immediately accretive to AFFO per share upon closing, which should occur in the first-half of 2017. “The addition of FiberNet’s complementary footprint in top metro markets in South Florida and Texas bolsters our fiber available for small cells in markets where we see significant demand from our wireless carrier customers,” Crown Castle’s CEO Jay Brown said. Jim Simons‘ Renaissance Technologies cut its stake in Crown Castle International Corp (NYSE:CCI) by 60% in the second quarter to 833,400 shares as of June 30.

On the next page we’ll examine why Baker Hughes, Chevron, and Johnson Controls are trending.