Why NVIDIA, Manitowoc, Union Pacific, and More Are in the Spotlight

Although a constitutional crisis might occur if Hillary Clinton wins on November 8 but Donald Trump refuses to concede, the markets aren’t that concerned, as the major indexes are relatively unchanged and the VIX “fear index” is below 15.

In this article, we’ll examine five stocks that are in the spotlight this Thursday afternoon, including NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA), Manitowoc Company Inc (NYSE:MTW), Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE:UNP), CBS Corporation (NYSE:CBS), and Viacom, Inc. (NASDAQ:VIAB). In addition to the latest rumblings, we’ll also check in with the smart money to analyze hedge fund sentiment towards them.

We believe that imitating hedge funds and other large institutional investors can be helpful in identifying stocks capable of outperforming the broader market. Through extensive research that covered portfolios of several hundred large investors between 1999 and 2012, we determined that following the small-cap stocks that large money managers are collectively bullish on, can generate monthly returns nearly 1.0 percentage points above the market (see the details).

matthew siddons / Shutterstock.com

Traders are keeping a close eye on NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) after Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) announced that all of the vehicles it is producing will be loaded with fully-functioning self-driving hardware. Given that Tesla vehicles will use Nvidia’s Titan GPU to process various data, the announcement is good news for NVIDIA long-term. Not surprisingly, shares of NVIDIA are up by 1.4% in afternoon trading. Fang Zheng‘s Keywise Capital Management raised its stake in NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) by 7% in the second quarter to 1.15 million shares, with the position accounting for 28.35% of the value of the fund’s U.S. public equity portfolio at the end of June.

Manitowoc Company Inc (NYSE:MTW) shares are off by 10% after the company provided disappointing preliminary third quarter results. For the period, the company expects net sales of around $350 million, which is considerably lower than the $438 million that it pulled in during the third quarter of 2015. The company’s adjusted operating loss is expected to be $31 million, compared to a loss of $8 million for the same period of last year.

“Orders and backlog for the company declined double digits during the third quarter, and these trends have continued into the fourth quarter. Subsequently, we’ve significantly reduced our production build schedules for Mobile products to reflect these lower incoming order rates. In addition, we are accelerating the relocation of the Manitowoc crawler production to Shady Grove, taking additional headcount reductions, reducing other non-employee costs, and temporarily shutting-down certain mobile production lines during the fourth quarter,” CEO Barry Pennypacker said.

Of the 749 hedge funds that we track which filed 13Fs for the June quarter, 27 funds owned $215.19 million in Manitowoc Company Inc (NYSE:MTW) holdings on June 30, which accounted for 28.80% of the float.

On the next page we’ll find out why Union Pacific, CBS, and Viacom are trending.

Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE:UNP) shares are 6.8% in the red after the railroad operator reported EPS of $1.36 on sales of $5.17 billion for its third quarter, missing the consensus marks by $0.03 and $10 million respectively. Sales fell by 7% year-over-year, led by a 19% decline in coal revenue. Operating ratio climbed by 1.8 basis points to 62.1%, while the company repurchased 9 million shares during the quarter at an aggregate cost of $851 million. The number of funds in our database with holdings in Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE:UNP) stood at 55 at the end of June.

Viacom, Inc. (NASDAQ:VIAB) and CBS Corporation (NYSE:CBS)‘s potential marriage is moving closer to the finish line. According to the New York Post, a merger could occur by Thanksgiving, at least according to some Viacom shareholders. Although controlling shareholder National Amusements wants an all-stock deal with an at-market price, some Viacom stakeholders hope that there might be something extra involved, such as potential contingent consideration if certain targets are met.

According to our data, 59 funds that we track owned shares of CBS Corporation (NYSE:CBS) at the end of June, while 41 where shareholders of Viacom, Inc. (NASDAQ:VIAB).

Disclosure: None