Why Investors Are Watching Dean Foods, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Halliburton, and More

It’s another quiet day on the Street as the main indexes are moderately in the green while the VIX is down 3% to trade below 15. Among the stocks that traders are watching are several tech companies, one oil service company, and two others.

In this article, let’s take a closer look at Dean Foods Co (NYSE:DF), Solaredge Technologies Inc (NASDAQ:SEDG), QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM), Halliburton Company (NYSE:HAL), and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:REGN) and analyze why each stock is trending. Let’s also examine how the smart money investors from our database were positioned towards the stocks in question.

While there are many metrics that investors can assess in the investment process, the hedge fund sentiment is something that is often overlooked. However, hedge funds and other institutional investors allocate significant resources while making their bets and their long-term focus makes them the perfect investors to emulate. This is supported by our research, which determined that following the small-cap stocks that hedge funds are collectively bullish on can help a smaller investor to beat the S&P 500 by around 95 basis points per month (see the details here).

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Dean Foods Co (NYSE:DF)’s stock has spiked by 5% after the Financial Times reported that China’s Hangzhou Wahaha Group is said to be seeking financing from various sources including several PE funds to make a potential bid for Dean Foods. Like all M&A rumors, there is no guarantee that a bid will be made, particularly given that the plans are in early stage and Wahaha may be considering buying other companies. Of the 749 elite funds we track, 21 funds owned $195.7 million worth of Dean Foods Co (NYSE:DF)’s stock, which accounted for 11.80% of the float on June 30, versus 20 funds and $200.19 million, respectively, on March 31.

Solaredge Technologies Inc (NASDAQ:SEDG) shares are in the red today after after Goldman Sachs analys Brian Lee noted that Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) is now manufacturing its own inverters, and thus lowering the probability that SolarEdge might win business for Tesla’s Powerpack. Lee has a ‘Sell’ recommendation and a $13 price target on the stock. The number of funds tracked by us with holdings in Solaredge Technologies Inc (NASDAQ:SEDG) fell by two quarter-over-quarter to 12 at the end of June.

On the next page, we find out why the spotlight is shining on Qualcomm, Halliburton Company, and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.

QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) is in the spotlight today after Tim Long of BMO Capital raised his price target to $70 per share from the previous $53 and upgraded the stock to ‘Market Perform’ from ‘Underperform’. Although Long thinks Qualcomm’s core fundamentals will remain challenged, he expects the stock to be range-bound due to the company’s recent deal to buy NXP. A total of 48 funds from our database were long QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) at the end of June, down by 11 funds from the previous quarter.

Traders are watching the price action surrounding Halliburton Company (NYSE:HAL) after General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) announced that it was seeking a potential partnership with Baker Hughes Incorporated (NYSE:BHI). Although GE has said it isn’t interested in buying Baker Hughes, a partnership would strengthen Baker and could potentially take some market share away from Halliburton. Given that prospect, it’s not surprising that Halliburton is down 0.9% at a time when its peers such as Schlumberger Limited. (NYSE:SLB) are in the green. At the end of June, 62 funds followed by our team owned shares of Halliburton Company (NYSE:HAL), up by eight funds from the previous quarter.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:REGN) shares are off by 4% after the company disclosed in a regulatory filing that its collaborator, Sanofi SA (ADR) (NYSE:SNY), was notified of manufacturing deficiencies raised by the FDA in a Sanofi facility that conducts “fill and finish” activities for certain products, including sarilumab, an antibody to the interleukin-6 receptor being developed by Regeneron in collaboration with Sanofi. Due to the FDA notification, it is unclear how the situation will impact the timing of the potential approval of sarilumab by the FDA. The expected action date for the sarilumab BLA was/is October 30, 2016. A total of 32 funds tracked by Insider Monkey amassed around 2% of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:REGN)’s outstanding stock on June 30.

Disclosure: none