This is What You Need to Know About These 5 Trending Stocks

On the last Friday before earnings season officially begins, investors are generally in a good mood, as all three indexes are up and crude futures are over 5% in the green. Among the trending stocks today are Alliance Fiber Optic Products Inc (NASDAQ:AFOP), Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW), Anavex Life Sciences Corp.(NASDAQ:AVXL), SeaChange International (NASDAQ:SEAC), and CME Group Inc (NASDAQ:CME). Let’s find out why these stocks are trending and analyze how hedge funds have felt about them recently.

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It’s M&A Friday, as Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW) is acquiring Alliance Fiber Optic Products Inc (NASDAQ:AFOP) for $18.50 per share in cash. Corning shares are slightly in the green, while Alliance Fiber Optic shares are 19.44% higher on the news. Corning is acquiring Alliance to expand the company’s market access to cloud data-center operators and OEMs, and to broaden its presence in Asia. The transaction should deliver cost and product synergies that generate 3% incremental sales growth and be accretive to EPS in the first year. Both companies’ board of directors have approved the deal, and the acquisition is expected to close before the end of the second quarter.

38 elite funds in our database owned 6.5% of Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW)’s shares on December 31, while there were 7 funds with positions amounting to 5.2% of Alliance Fiber Optic Products Inc (NASDAQ:AFOP)’s shares at the end of 2015. John A. Levin‘s Levin Capital Strategies was the largest of the 38 shareholders of Corning, owning roughly 14.75 million shares at the end of December.

Anavex Life Sciences Corp. (NASDAQ:AVXL), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing differentiated therapeutics for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, is 12.22% higher today after the FDA tagged the company’s ANAVEX 3-71 with the Orphan Drug designation for the treatment of Frontotemporal dementia. Frontotemporal dementia afflicts approximately 50,000-to-60,000 patients in the U.S and represents 10%-to-20% of all dementia cases. Orphan Drug designation provides sponsors with commercial and development incentives, including seven years of market exclusivity in the United States, certain exemptions or reductions in regulatory fees, and prioritized consultation from the FDA on clinical studies. Two top funds in our system held $210,000 worth of shares of Anavex Life Sciences Corp.(NASDAQ:AVXL) as of December 31. As with all micro-caps, investors should do due-diligence before making any investment decision.

On the next page we delve into the latest news regarding SeaChange International and CME Group.