Why Investors Are Buzzing About Apple, Ford, Teva, Mylan, and Southwest Airlines This Morning

After Friday’s sharp drop in equity prices, more investors are keeping tabs on the market to see whether the recent interest rate fears will cause the indexes to enter into correction territory. Although the market is nowhere close to correction levels currently, stocks have historically fallen faster than they rise. Whether stocks will be a good buy in the short-to-medium terms is an open question.

Among the stocks that are capturing traders’ interest today are Mylan NV (NASDAQ:MYL), Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:TEVA), Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), and Southwest Airlines Co (NYSE:LUV). In this article, we’ll examine the events that are garnering attention for each stock while also using the latest 13F filings data to see how successful hedge funds are positioned in them.

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Mylan NV (NASDAQ:MYL)‘s EpiPen might get competition sooner than expected. Although Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:TEVA)‘s generic application for an EpiPen-like product was rejected by the FDA in February due to “major deficiencies”, it seems the recent political controversy over Mylan’s past price increases in the essential drug has prompted the FDA to change its mind. According to Teva, due to the “media attention in the last two weeks, the FDA has come back to us and we will have a meeting very, very quickly.” Given the FDA’s sudden shift, Teva says that it now hopes to win the agency’s approval for a generic version of the treatment by late-2017 or early-2018. If that happens, Mylan’s EpiPen market-share, which currently stands at around 94%, could fall dramatically. That’s important news for Mylan, as EpiPen accounted for about one-fifth of the drug company’s profits before it was forced to cut pricing by 50% in many cases.

Of the 749 hedge funds that we track which filed 13Fs for the June quarter, 44 owned shares of Mylan NV (NASDAQ:MYL) on June 30 and 55 had a long position in Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:TEVA).

Southwest Airlines Co (NYSE:LUV) is in the news after the company reached a deal in principle with the Transport Workers Union, which represents around 12,000 flight attendants. Although the terms of the tentative deal were not released, more certainty is always good. A labor strike would have severely hurt Southwest’s business and near-term profits. Southwest previously struck a tentative deal with its pilots union in August. David Tepper‘s Appaloosa Management established a new stake of almost 3.5 million shares in Southwest Airlines Co (NYSE:LUV) in the second quarter.

On the next page, we’ll examine the headline-making events concerning Ford and Apple over the weekend.

After seeing competitor General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) buy a stake in ride-sharing app Lyft and form an alliance with it, Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) has also inched closer to being a mobility company by agreeing to buy Chariot, a San Francisco-based, crowd-sourced shuttle service. By buying Chariot, Ford hopes to expand its dynamic shuttle services globally, including to at least five additional markets in the next 18 months. Ford has a long-term goal of providing transportation solutions in addition to manufacturing vehicles. 31 funds that we track were long Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) at the end of the second quarter, down by two funds from the end of the first quarter.

While Ford may have made some progress in mobility, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) may have taken a step back in terms of its ambitions for the sector. According to the New York Times, Apple has terminated parts of its self-driving car project and has laid off some of its employees that had been associated with it. Apple is now said to be focusing on “building out the underlying technology for an autonomous vehicle” rather than actually designing and producing a self-driving car. Whether the strategy shift is ultimately better for shareholders is an open question right now. 116 funds in our database were long Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) at the end of the second quarter, down by 36 funds quarter-over-quarter.

Disclosure: None