Home Depot, Alphabet, Twitter Among the Hottest Stocks Today

The markets have slipped on Tuesday after the latest CPI report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics said that consumer prices in April were the highest they have been in three years. This could result in an interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve, which has a meeting scheduled for June. Some of the important stocks which are trending today include Home Depot Inc (NYSE:HD), LendingClub Corp (NYSE:LC), Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Pandora Media Inc (NYSE:P), and Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR). Let’s see why these stocks are in the spotlight today and also analyze the hedge fund sentiment surrounding each of them.  

At Insider Monkey, we track nearly 800 hedge funds and other institutional investors as part of our small-cap strategy, which can help a retail investor beat Mr. Market by nearly one percentage point per month (see the details).

Home Depot Beats Estimates

Home Depot Inc (NYSE:HD)’s stock has lost 1.46% this morning despite the company beating estimates by posting profit of $1.80 billion, or $1.44 per share for the first quarter, up from $1.58 billion, or $1.21 per share for the first quarter of last year. The Atlanta-based home improvement retailer’s revenue increased by 9% to $22.76 billion, also beating analysts’ consensus estimate of $22.39 billion. In a statement, Home Depot CEO Craig Menear said that the strong financial figures were the result of solid execution and broad-based growth. The company also upgraded its 2016 full year guidance given the strong results, with it now expecting adjusted earnings at $6.27 per share on revenue growth of 6.3%, up from its previous guidance of $6.12-to-$6.18 per share on revenue growth of 5.1%-to-6.0%.

Out of the comprehensive database of funds that we track at Insider Monkey, 62 hedge funds were long Home Depot Inc (NYSE:HD) as of the end of last year. Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management owns more than 1.8 million shares of the company as of March 31.

LendingClub Receives Grand Jury Subpoena

LendingClub Corp (NYSE:LC) is down by 11.29% today after the company announced on Monday afternoon that it has received a grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice.  The summons from the court was issued after LendingClub’s CEO Renaud Laplanche resigned over an internal investigation regarding $22 million issued in improper loan sales. Nonetheless, the San Francisco-based company said today that it would not need to restate its financial results due to any weakness in its internal controls that led to the non-conforming sales.

Among the funds that we track, 18 held shares of LendingClub Corp (NYSE:LC) at the end of 2015. As of March 31, Alexander Tamas’ VY Capital reported holding 4.4 million shares of the company.

On the next page we’ll discuss why Alphabet, Pandora Media and Twitter are in the news today. 

Google Launches Carpooling Service in the Bay Area

Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is 0.27% in the red today after Waze, the Google-owned ride-sharing app, announced a ride-sharing pilot program in the San Francisco Bay Area for 25,000 employees who work near Google’s offices there. The app puts the company in direct competition with the highly-successful Uber and Lyft. If successful, Google’s carpooling service could also play a key role in the scalability of its self-driving car project. As of March 31, Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management holds 973,292 class A shares of Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL).

Corvex Management Presses Pandora Media for Sale

Shares of Pandora Media Inc (NYSE:P) have soared by more than 6% today after Keith Meister’s Corvex Management disclosed increased ownership of 9.9% in the company and pressed the California-based media company to pursue a sale in a letter sent to its board of directors. The letter said that Pandora hasn’t been able to boost returns for shareholders, despite having a great product. Corvex also said that it has become “increasingly concerned” about Pandora’s costly and uncertain business plan. The letter said that potential buyers of Pandora could include large internet companies, handset makers and media companies.

Ricky Sandler’s Eminence Capital is one of the biggest shareholders of Pandora Media Inc (NYSE:P) as of March 31, with ownership of more than 14 million shares of the company.

Twitter May Relax 140-Character Limit

Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR)’s stock has gained 1.61% after a report from Bloomberg claimed that the social media company is considering relaxing its 140-character limit on tweets. The report cited unidentified sources as saying that Twitter will stop counting photos and links in its tweets to relax the character limit. The change will take place within the next two weeks, according to the source.

Out of the 786 hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey, 30 funds had long positions in Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) at the end of the fourth quarter of 2015. More recently, Tsachy Mishal’s TAM Capital Management owned 501,800 shares of the company on March 31.

Disclosure: None