Market Defying Stocks: Why Axiall, Connecture, and 3 Other Stocks Are Rising on a Red Day

It’s been a volatile day on Wall Street as the markets initially sold off sharply on fears of the consequences of a potential Brexit. The markets have since recovered some of those losses, as long-term investors buy in anticipation of robust future earnings growth. Among the stocks rising in today’s sea of red are Axiall Corp (NYSE:AXLL), Connecture Inc (NASDAQ:CNXR), Global Blood Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:GBT), NovaGold Resources Inc. (USA) (NYSEMKT:NG), and Barrick Gold Corporation (USA) (NYSE:ABX). Let’s find out how elite funds are positioned in each stock and see why traders are buying them today.

Our research 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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Buyout At Axiall 

Axiall Corp (NYSE:AXLL) shares are 25% in the green after Westlake Chemical Corporation (NYSE:WLK) entered into a definitive agreement to buy all of the outstanding shares of Axiall for $33 in cash per share, representing a total enterprise value of around $3.8 billion. The agreement has been approved by both companies’ board of directors and is expected to close by the end of 2016. Westlake management believes the combination will yield annual cost synergies of $100 million and be accretive in the first year after completion of the deal. The number of elite funds in our database holding shares of Axiall Corp (NYSE:AXLL) jumped to 36 from 17 quarter-over-quarter as of the most recent 13F reporting period.

Connecture Spikes on Filing

Connecture Inc (NASDAQ:CNXR) is 28% higher after the company filed a Form 8-K in which the company reported that it and its subsidiary have entered into an amended credit agreement with Wells Fargo Bank. Under the terms of the amended agreement, the loan maturity date is extended to June 8, 2021 from January 18, 2018 and term loan funding is increased to $35 million from $20 million, among other changes. On June 7, Connecture Inc (NASDAQ:CNXR) also completed the acquisition of ConnectedHealth LLC for $5 million. 7 savvy funds owned shares of Connecture at the end of the first quarter out of the 766 active funds that Insider Monkey tracks.

On the next page we examine why shares of Global Blood Therapeutics, NovaGold Resources, and Barrick Gold are gaining ground today.