Traders Are Buzzing About These Five Hot Stocks Today

With crude futures down 2% and all three major indexes in the red, the S&P 500 is now below 2,100 and the Dow Jones index is just 60 points above 18,000. Among the stocks that are doing well today are Crestwood Equity Partners LP (NYSE:CEQP), ServiceNow Inc (NYSE:NOW), CombiMatrix Corp (NASDAQ:CBMX), Raymond James Financial, Inc. (NYSE:RJF), and Arotech Corporation (NASDAQ:ARTX). Let’s find out why investors are buzzing about these five stocks and see how the smart money tracked by Insider Monkey is positioned in them.

Through extensive research that covered portfolios of several hundred large investors between 1999 and 2012, we determined that following the small-cap stocks that large money managers are collectively bullish on, can generate monthly returns nearly 1.0 percentage points above the market (see the details here).

Crestwood Surges on Joint Venture Announcement

Crestwood Equity Partners LP (NYSE:CEQP) shares have surged by 50% after the company announced a new joint venture with Consolidated Edison, Inc. (NYSE:ED) named Stagecoach Gas Services LLC. The venture, which will be 50% owned by Crestwood, will develop and own Crestwood’s existing gas storage and pipeline business in Southern New York and Northern Pennsylvania. A subsidiary of Consolidated Edison will purchase 50% of the equity interest in the joint venture for $975 million, giving the entire venture an equity value of around $1.95 billion. Crestwood will use that $975 million to retire debt and improve its leverage and liquidity. The company will cut its quarterly dividend payout to $0.60 per share from the previous $1.375, however. Because of the venture, Crestwood now anticipates distributable cash flow of $275 million-to-$305 million for 2016. Six top funds in our system owned 1.6% of Crestwood Equity Partners LP (NYSE:CEQP) at the end of 2015.

ServiceNow Soars on Earnings

ServiceNow Inc (NYSE:NOW) reported an excellent first quarter, with EPS of $0.09 per share on revenue of $305.9 million. The results beat estimates by $0.02 per share and $5.02 million, respectively. Billings surged by 41% year-over-year, with 249 customers each paying more than $1 million a year. Subscription revenue jumped by 48.6% to $267.4 million, while overall sales rose by 44.3% year-over-year. For the second quarter, ServiceNow expects revenue of $332 million-to-$335 million, and for the full-year, the company expects revenue of $1.355 billion-to-$1.38 billion. Both numbers are in-line with analyst estimates. The number of elite funds (out of our database of 786 savvy investors) with holdings in ServiceNow Inc (NYSE:NOW) rose by nine to 35 during the fourth quarter.

On the next page we examine CombiMatrix Corp, Raymond James Financial Inc, and Arotech Corporation, and see why investors are loading up on these stocks today.