Why Are These 5 Stocks Making Moves Today?

With crude futures 1.5% lower as investors anticipate the upcoming API release on Tuesday and the EIA release on Wednesday, five stocks, California Resources Corp (NYSE:CRC), Ubiquiti Networks Inc (NASDAQ:UBNT), Legacy Reserves LP (NASDAQ:LGCY), Manchester United PLC (NYSE:MANU), and Oi SA (ADR) (NYSE:OIBR), are each on the move. Let’s find out why investors are buying or selling these equities and analyze hedge fund sentiment towards these stocks, if relevant.

At Insider Monkey, we track around 785 hedge funds and institutional investors. Through extensive backtests, we have determined that imitating some of the stocks that these investors are collectively bullish on, can help retail investors generate double digits of alpha per year. The key is to focus on the small-cap picks of these funds, which are usually less followed by the broader market and allow for larger price inefficiencies (see the details here).

California Resources Shares Volatile

California Resources Corp (NYSE:CRC) shares rallied by more than 11% in the first hour of trading this morning before falling into the red, with them now trading down by 4.82% on the day. Given that California Resources Corp (NYSE:CRC) is an oil and gas E&P in California, its fortunes are dependent on WTI prices, which have been volatile this morning. The price of the commodity initially rallied to around $44 per barrel before dropping to the current $43 per barrel. Of the 786 active funds we track, 29 of them owned $237.28 million of California Resources Corp (NYSE:CRC)’s shares, which accounted for 26.20% of the float on December 31.

Technical Buying Detected at Ubiquiti

Ubiquiti Networks Inc (NASDAQ:UBNT) shares are 2% in the green due to technical buying. Although there is no fundamental news concerning Ubiquiti Networks Inc (NASDAQ:UBNT) today, its stock closed above some key moving averages recently and the company’s relatively modest forward P/E of 14.8 likely gave momentum traders some impetus to buy. According to Yahoo Finance, Ubiquiti is set to release its latest quarterly earnings results on May 5. Nine funds in our system, including Joel Greenblatt‘s Gotham Asset Management, owned shares of Ubiquiti at the end of December.

On the next page we examine why shares of Legacy Reserves LP, Manchester United PLC, and Oi SA (ADR) are changing hands on high volume today.

Legacy Up on Momentum

Shares of Legacy Reserves LP (NASDAQ:LGCY), an independent oil and natural gas limited partnership focused on the acquisition and development of oil and gas properties located in the Permian Basin, Mid-continent and Rocky Mountains regions, have surged by 28% today following Friday’s 44% rally as technical traders try to catch some of the follow-on momentum. Some investors were worried that Legacy Reserves LP (NASDAQ:LGCY) might be delisted from the NASDAQ due to the company’s less than $1 per share value in early April. Given the current rally, however, the delisting is no longer a concern at the moment. As with all micro-caps, investors should do their due-diligence before buying. Jim Simons‘ Renaissance Technologies was among three savvy funds that we track which held shares of the company at the end of 2015.

Manchester United Higher Due to Ron Baron Plug

Manchester United PLC (NYSE:MANU) is benefiting from the “Barron’s Lift” today, after fund manager Ron Baron said the following in a Barron’s column this weekend:

“We own 10%. Soccer is the most popular sport in the world. It’s like 40 Super Bowls. As contracts get repriced, they will get much higher media rates. The revenue will go from $577.5 million when we bought it in 2013 to $1.2 billion in 2020, and cash flow will go from $171.2 million to $475 million. I think it will be worth $6 billion or $7 billion. The stock will sell at $40 [versus $14.80 last week].”

Shares of Manchester United PLC (NYSE:MANU) have rallied by more than 3% on the plug. Seven elite funds in our database had shares of Manchester United in their portfolios as of December 31.

Oi SA Rallies on Restructuring News

Nano-cap Oi SA (ADR) (NYSE:OIBR) is 7% higher after Reuters reported that the company has formally entered talks to potentially restructure $14.3 billion of its bonds. Oi is heavily in debt and its current debt structure seems unsustainable. A restructuring could potentially lead to the acquisition of Oi by another firm. Nine funds that we track owned Oi SA (ADR) (NYSE:OIBR) at the end of 2015. As with all nano-caps, investors are urged to do their due-diligence before investing.

Disclosure: None