Why Facebook, Alphabet, IBM and Two Other Stocks Are Trending Today

Traders are watching crude today after Saudi Arabia proposed to cut its oil production if Iran agrees to limit its production to current levels. At the current moment, Iran has yet to accept or reject the proposal.

In this article, we take a closer look at some of the other stocks traders are watching, including AAR Corp. (NYSE:AIR), Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM), Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT). We will also use data from the latest 13F filings to determine how the investors we track at Insider Monkey are positioned towards each stock.

At Insider Monkey, we track around 740 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).

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AAR Corp. (NYSE:AIR) is in the green after the company reported fiscal first quarter earnings of $0.29 per share on revenue of $404.8 million, beating the consensus estimates by $0.03 and $6.45 million, respectively. Sales rose by 4.7% year-over-year, as revenues in the company’s aviation services segment increased by 6% and the company’s supply chain business continued to exhibit good performance. Shares of AAR are up by over 11% year-to-date. Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management reported a long stake of over 1.06 million shares in AAR Corp. (NYSE:AIR) at the end of June, up 4% from the end of March.

Traders are watching Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) stock after the Wall Street Journal reported that the social network had overestimated the average time users watched videos on its platforms for around two years by 60%-80%. The metric was artificially inflated due to Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) only factoring in views of videos of over three seconds. Although the social media giant has corrected the problem and the inflated metric did not affect billing, some marketers and ad buyers aren’t too happy. Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) was the most widely held stock among the smart money we track, as 148 investors were long the stock at the end of June.

On the next page, we examine why International Business Machines Corp, Alphabet, and Wal-Mart Stores are in the spotlight.

International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) is diving deeper into blockchain according to the Financial Times. The technology giant is expected to announce a partnership with the Chinese payment settlement network China UnionPay this week. The partnership will save the two companies money in an effort to allow various Chinese bank customers to trade bonus points for different loyalty programs. A total of 53 funds from our database had a bullish position in International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) at the end of the second quarter.

Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) is trending after Google Capital is said to have co-led a round that invested in room-sharing app Airbnb. According to the people in the know, the round valued Airbnb at $30 billion, which makes the website/app the fourth most valuable private start-up in the world, after first place Uber, and the Chinese companies Didi and Xiaomi. Alphabet’s venture capital arm has also invested in Uber. Many hedge funds are bullish on Alphabet. According to our data, 126 funds own class C shares of Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) as of the end of June

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) received an analyst thumbs up today after Karen Short of Barclays raised her rating on the retailer to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Equal Weight’. Short also ramped up her price target to $87 from $70, citing Wal-Mart’s ‘re-emergence as a disruptor’ as a reason to be bullish. At the end of June, 58 investors tracked by us had a bullish position in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) at the end of June, up by four funds from the previous quarter.

Disclosure: none