Wednesday’s Trending Stocks: Twitter, Statoil, Mondelez, More

The markets have opened higher on Wednesday as investors evaluate the slew of earnings reports inundating the market and await word from the Federal Reserve on rate hike and the global economic outlook. Among the stocks on investors’ radar this morning are Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR), Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR), AK Steel Holding Corporation (NYSE:AKS), Mondelez International Inc (NASDAQ:MDLZ), and Statoil ASA(ADR) (NYSE:STO). Let’s find out why these stocks are in the spotlight today and see what the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey think of each of them.

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Twitter Posts Disappointing Quarter

Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR)’s stock is getting spanked this morning, diving by more than 11%, as the beleaguered company’s second quarter revenue and third quarter outlook missed analysts’ estimates. The social media company reported second quarter EPS of $0.13 on $602 million in revenue, while the consensus estimates had called for $0.10 in EPS on $606.77 million in revenue. Twitter said that declining demand from advertisers is expected to hurt its third quarter results as well. User growth remains a long-standing problem for Twitter. The company added just 3.00 million new users in the quarter, up by 1% from the end of the first quarter. However, in a statement, Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey appeared hopeful of future user growth. Mr. Dorsey said that new product changes have laid a foundation for strong user growth in the future. For the third quarter, Twitter forecast its revenue to be in the $590 million-to-$610 million range, a far cry from the $681.4 million that analysts called for. A total of 27 hedge funds in our database held shares of Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) at the end of the first quarter, down from 30 funds a quarter earlier.

Juniper Networks Margins Expected to Decline

Shares of Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) have lost more than 4% of their value since the bell today after the company posted an 11% fall in profit and warned of a decline in operating margins due to challenging market conditions. The California-based network products maker earned $0.50 per share in the second quarter, beating the estimated $0.47. Revenue for the quarter came in at $1.22 billion, also beating analysts’ forecast of $1.19 billion. For third quarter however, Juniper Networks expects its EPS to be in the range of $0.48-to-$0.54, with the very top end of the range only meeting the consensus estimate of $0.54. Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management held 278,525 shares of Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) on June 30, the position having been trimmed by 9% during the second quarter.

On the next page we’ll discuss why AK Steel, Mondelez, and Statoil are trending this morning.