JetBlue, Chevron, & NVIDIA Among 5 Stocks in the Spotlight Today

Wall Street is firmly in the red today, as all three indexes have opened lower and crude futures are off by 3%. The Dow is off by almost 200 points, while the S&P 500 is down by 1.22% and the Nasdaq is 0.91% in the red.

In this article, we’ll analyze why investors are buzzing about Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX), NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA), Baidu Inc (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU), Anthem Inc (NYSE:ANTM), and JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU) today, some of which have shown more relative strength than the index. We’ll also use the latest 13F data to see how the world’s greatest investors are positioned in each stock.

At Insider Monkey, we track around 750 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).

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Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX) received the thumbs up from BMO yesterday, which initiated coverage on the company’s stock with an ‘Outperform’ rating and $120 price target. The BMO analysts like how the company is entering a new phase of likely-healthy margin growth. If OPEC can get its act together and freeze production, Chevron’s cash flow will also improve to the point where its $1.07 annual dividend will be sustainable long-term. 47 funds that we track owned shares of Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX) at the end of the second quarter, up by one quarter-over-quarter.

NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) is in the spotlight after the semiconductor company presented the Drive PX 2, the company’s efficient and compact artificial intelligence computer, which consumes only 10 watts of power and is around half the size of the previous version. The Drive PX series will eventually be used in self-driving cars using Baidu software. NVIDIA and Baidu Inc (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU) announced a partnership in late-August with the goal of producing a comprehensive autonomous driving platform. If the platform realizes traction, NVIDIA could see its revenue rise considerably.

Of the 749 hedge funds that we track which filed 13Fs for the June quarter, 50 owned shares of NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) at the end of June, while 56 had a long position in Baidu Inc (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU).

On the next page, we’ll see why Anthem and JetBlue Airways are trending today.

Anthem Inc (NYSE:ANTM) shares are off by 2% this morning after Jefferies lowered their rating on the stock to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ and also trimmed their price target on it to $138 per share from $156. As reasoning for the downgrade, the Jefferies analysts cited the lack of positive catalysts and concerns over potentially-rising costs. Anthem shares are down by 6% year-to-date and trade for 10.77-times forward earnings. 58 funds in our system owned shares of Anthem Inc (NYSE:ANTM) as of the most recent 13F reporting period.

JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU) is one of the rare green stocks today after the airline reported its preliminary traffic numbers for August. For the month, traffic rose by 6.2% year-over-year while capacity inched up by 5.7%. Load factor was 87.4%, up by 0.4% from August 2015. The company’s preliminary revenue per available seat mile for the time period decreased by 5.5% year-over-year. For the third quarter, JetBlue’s management expects RASM to decline by a more moderate 3%-to-4% year-over-year. The falling crude prices might also be helping shares today. Jim Simons‘ Renaissance Technologies had a stake of over 6 million shares of JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU) in its portfolio on June 30, 10% larger than its position held on March 31.

Disclosure: None