Why Are These Four Stocks Plunging Today?

Wall Street is sinking lower to close the week and shares of Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC), PTC Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:PTCT), Atwood Oceanics, Inc. (NYSE:ATW), and Trina Solar Limited (ADR) (NYSE:TSL) are getting hit particularly hard today. Let’s find out why investors are selling off these equities in droves today as well as what relevant hedge funds have to say about these stocks.

Let’s first take a step back and analyze how tracking hedge funds can help an everyday investor. Through our research, we discovered that a portfolio of the 15 most popular small-cap picks of hedge funds beat the S&P 500 Total Return Index by nearly a percentage point per month on average between 1999 and 2012. On the other hand the most popular large-cap picks of hedge funds underperformed the same index by seven basis points per month during the same period. This is likely a surprise to many investors, who think of small-caps as risky, unpredictable stocks and put more faith (and money) in large-cap stocks (read the details here). Follow the smart money into only their best investment ideas all while avoiding their high fees.

First on the list is Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC), whose stock has plummeted by 3% on the back of the company reporting its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2015. The company posted $5.7 billion in quarterly net income (same as in the fourth quarter of 2014) or $1.03 per share, which represents an increase of 1% to the $1.02 per share that income amounted to a year earlier. The company’s revenue of $21.6 billion was also higher by 1% when compared to the figure reported a year earlier. However, while the income was inline with estimates, the revenue came short of the consensus estimate by $200 million.

Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC) lost popularity in the third quarter of 2015 out of the 730 funds that we track. 85 funds held shares of the company on September 30, amassing 11.7% of the float, down from 91 funds on June 30. Warren Buffett‘s Berkshire Hathaway was the largest shareholder of Wells Fargo in our system, with 470.29 million shares valued at $24.15 billion at the end of September.

PTC Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:PTCT)’s shares are down by around 13% today. The stock is likely sinking on the news that BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. (NASDAQ:BMRN)’s Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) drug Kyndrisa was rejected by the FDA yesterday. PTC is working on a treatment that targets a different subtype of DMD. The biopharmaceutical company continues its downward trend since the start of the year, reaching a 52-week low like a multitude of other stocks early in the new year. Among the funds we follow, 28 reported long positions in PTC Therapeutics as of the end of September, down by four funds from a quarter earlier. Bain Capital‘s Brookside Capital reported holding a $24.2 million position in the stock as of that date, comprising 0.72% of its 13F portfolio.

Two more sinking stocks are studied on the next page.