Why Are These Stocks Experiencing Big Swings Today?

At a time when Wall Street is in positive ground after dipping to three-month lows, shares of LendingClub Corp (NYSE:LC), SolarCity Corp (NASDAQ:SCTY), and Natural Health Trends Corp. (NASDAQ:NHTC) are unable to take advantage of the day’s positive momentum. Let’s find out why investors are selling these equities today as well as what relevant hedge funds have to say about these stocks. We’ll also look at Intrexon Corp (NYSE:XON), which has been able to reverse course this afternoon and is now flying high.

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 Intrexon Corp (NYSE:XON), which had fallen by as much as 12% earlier in the day, but is now up by over 9% after the company presented at the 34th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference today, with the participation of Samuel Broder, M.D., Senior Vice President and Head of Intrexon’s Health Sector and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Randal J. Kirk and Chief Operating Officer Krish Krishnan.

Intrexon Corp (NYSE:XON) lost popularity in the third quarter of 2015 among the investors that we track, as out of the 730 funds in our system, 17 of them held shares of the company on September 30, amassing 5.9% of the float, down from 21 funds on June 30. David Cohen and Harold Levy‘s Iridian Asset Management was the largest shareholder of Intrexon Corp (NYSE:XON) in our system, with 1.89 million shares valued at $60.25 million at the end of September.

LendingClub Corp (NYSE:LC)’s shares are down by around 5% today. Although there is no particular news behind the move, the stock continues yesterday’s slide, having now lost over 10% in the past two days. In 2015, the stock collapsed, having lost more than half of its value. The stock has already lost another 27% in 2016.

During the third-quarter, LendingClub Corp (NYSE:LC) also registered a decrease in popularity among the funds that we track, with 15 investors holding long positions at the end of September, versus 26 funds at the end of June. David Gallo‘s Valinor Management held 14.40 million shares valued at $190.48 million at the end of September.

SolarCity Corp and Natural Health Trends Corp. are dissected on the next page.