Netflix, Rio Tinto, and Exxon Mobil Among 5 Stocks Making Waves Today

On the first day of the trading week and the second trading day of the quarter, the markets are off sharply due to renewed Brexit concerns. The Dow is off by almost 140 points while the Nasdaq is over 1% in the red. Crude futures have performed even worse, falling by over 5%.

In this article we’ll find out why traders are buzzing about five stocks today: Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA), Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX), Rio Tinto plc (ADR) (NYSE:RIO), Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM), and InterOil Corporation (USA) (NYSE:IOC), and analyze how top hedge funds are positioned among the five companies.

At Insider Monkey, we track over 765 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 here).

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Netflix to be Available Through Certain Set-Top Boxes

Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) shares are 1.3% in the green after Kara Swisher of Re/code reported that cable giant Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) will include Netflix in the company’s X1 set-top box platform. Although Netflix has done similar deals with smaller cable companies, the Comcast deal will likely make a bigger impact on Netflix’s subscriber count given Comcast’s wide distribution.

The deal is also a win for Comcast as it makes the company’s video offering more competitive. Although both companies have work to do, they anticipate offering the proposed functionality later in 2016. Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) was in 64 top funds’ portfolios as of the most recent 13F reporting period, while Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) was in the portfolios of 90 funds from among the same pool of top investors.

On the next page we examine why investors are showing heightened interest in Rio Tinto, Exxon Mobil, and InterOil today.