Why Microsoft (MSFT), Axiall (AXLL), Sony (SNE), Seagate & Energous Are Surging Today

Another big gainer in Friday trading is Sony Corp (ADR) (NYSE:SNE), up by nearly 18% in the afternoon hours, after the Japanese electronics company reported better-than-expected third quarter of fiscal year 2015 financial results. The Japanese firm posted GAAP earnings of ¥93.33 ($0.78) per share, up by 21.3% year-over-year. The surge was mostly driven by lower operating costs, strong PlayStation 4 sales and a resurgence in its Pictures business, which saw sales rise by 26.9%.

Among the funds in our database, Mario Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors disclosed the largest position in Sony Corp (ADR) (NYSE:SNE) as of the end of the third quarter, holding 6.06 million shares worth almost $150 million at that time. Another fund that seemed quite bullish was Allan Mecham and Ben Raybould’s Arlington Value Capital, which started a new stake in the company during the quarter, comprised of 2.21 million shares.

Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ:STX) is up by about 8.5% on Friday afternoon. Before the bell rang, the mid-cap electronic data storage products provider reported fiscal year 2016 second quarter earnings of $0.82 per share on revenue of $2.99 billion, beating the Street’s consensus of $0.71 per share and $2.96 billion. Even though the outlook that management provided for the current quarter was pretty disappointing, the company assured that it was implementing “aggressive” cost cutting initiatives and pointed out that, over the fiscal second quarter, enterprise sales had risen.

As of the end of the third quarter, Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ:STX) counted 31 hedge funds backers among those we track. In this group is David Harding’s Winton Capital Management, which boosted its stake by 39% over the quarter, to 2.65 million shares worth slightly less than $120 million.

Finally, there’s Energous Corp (NASDAQ:WATT), up by about 32% in Friday trading. Sources have suggested that the surge was prompted by a Bloomberg report suggesting that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is working with some partners to develop an over-the-air wireless charging technology that could be used on its devices as of 2017. While Energous Corp (NASDAQ:WATT) was not singled out in the article, Bloomberg’s description of the technology reminds of the company’s WattUp system. In addition, Energous recently said that it had inked a deal with a tier-1 company, which many have speculated to be Apple.

Energous Corp (NASDAQ:WATT) is not particularly popular among the institutional investors that we track. In fact, none of the funds in our database declared being long the stock as of the end of the third quarter of 2015. The largest institutional investor of record was L.A-based Doheny Asset Management, L.L.C., with 868,025 shares, or almost $6 million in stock.

Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article.