Why Canadian Solar, WebMD, BP, Chevron and Exxon Are Making Headlines

The markets are rallying today despite OPEC failing to come to an agreement on freezing crude production. The Dow is up by 82 points, the S&P 500 is 0.37% in the green, while the Nasdaq has rallied by over 0.62%.

In this article, we’ll find out why Canadian Solar Inc. (NASDAQ:CSIQ), WebMD Health Corp. (NASDAQ:WBMD), BP plc (ADR) (NYSE:BP), Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX), and Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) are each trending, as well as how the smart money feels about each one of them using the latest SEC data.

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Canadian Solar Inc. (NASDAQ:CSIQ) shares have surged by 3.7% after the company announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Recurrent Energy, has announced a 15-year PPA for 100 MWac of solar power in California with MCE, California’s first operating Community Choice Aggregation program. The power generated will be sufficient to power 48,300 homes and construction will begin in 2017. CEO Dr. Shawn Qu said, “this contract award further expands our contracted pipeline in the U.S. and marks the third and largest PPA between Recurrent Energy and MCE.” Ken Hahn‘s Quentec Asset Management increased its stake in Canadian Solar Inc. (NASDAQ:CSIQ) by 39% in the second quarter to just over 1.02 million shares at the end of June.

WebMD Health Corp. (NASDAQ:WBMD) is in the spotlight after the company appointed Blake DeSimone as its CFO. DeSimone was previously the Senior Vice President of Finance and will replace Peter Anevski, who is moving on to other things. In conjunction with the appointment of a new CFO, WebMD has also said that it expects third quarter and fiscal year 2016 financial results to be around the high-end of the previous guidance that it set forth in early-August. 27 funds that we track were long WebMD Health Corp. (NASDAQ:WBMD) at the end of the second quarter.

On the next page we’ll find out why BP, Chevron, and Exxon Mobil are in the spotlight.

Traders are watching Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM), Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX), and BP plc (ADR) (NYSE:BP) after crude futures retreated by around 2.7% on the back of the news that OPEC won’t likely reach a consensus in terms of freezing or cutting production at their informal meeting in Algeria. Although Saudi Arabia has offered to cut around 500,000 barrels per day, and Iraq has also offered to agree to a freeze or to cut if other nations can agree, Iran is again throwing a wrench into OPEC unity by refusing to freeze until its production reaches 4.1-to-4.2 million barrels per day, a demand which is itself up from the previous number of 4 million barrels per day. Given that the country has been under sanctions for a long period of time prior to last year, Iran’s economy is less dependent on oil than Saudi Arabia or Iraq’s economies are.

Still, not all is lost, as OPEC is still expected to convene in November to potentially work on a freeze again. If OPEC and Russia can get their act together, Chevron and BP’s dividend would be safer, and Exxon would have more cash flow to buy back stock or execute other actions.

In terms of hedge fund holdings, our data shows that the number of funds in our system with holdings in BP plc (ADR) (NYSE:BP) rose by six quarter-over-quarter to 40 at the end of June. As for the other two supermajors, 47 funds that we track were long Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX) on June 30, while 60 were shareholders of Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM), out of the 749 active hedge funds in our system.

Disclosure: None