Why These 5 Stocks Are Trending Today

The markets are trading in the red today after investor sentiment was dented following the Labor Department’s assertion that the U.S economy inched up by 0.5% in the first quarter, below expectations of 0.7%, which represented the lowest growth in nearly two years. Some stocks that are in the spotlight today are First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR), Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F), O’Reilly Automotive Inc (NASDAQ:ORLY), AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV) and Altria Group Inc (NYSE:MO), some of which are feeling the effects of this depressed environment. In this article we are going to see why these stocks are trending today and take a look at how the investors that we track are positioned in them.

At Insider Monkey, we track around 785 hedge funds and other 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 (see more details about our small-cap strategy).

First Solar Posts First Quarter Results

First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR)’s stock has dropped by nearly 6% this morning after the company reported a net profit of $170.6 million, or $1.66 per share, in the first quarter of 2016, beating the Zacks consensus estimate of $0.91 per share. The solar panel company’s quarterly revenue surged by 81% to reach $848.5 million, which nonetheless widely missed analysts’ expectations of $966 million. First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR) also announced that Mark Widmar, the current CFO of the company, will become the CEO in July. James Hughes, the current CEO, will remain on the company’s Board.

Out of 786 active hedge funds that we track, 30 funds held positions in First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR) at the end of the fourth quarter of 2015. Out of these hedge funds, Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management had the biggest stake, with ownership of more than 2.08 million shares of the company.

Record Profit Margins Helps Ford Beat Estimates

Shares of Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) have gained 3.44% today after the company posted its first quarter results. Ford reported its best ever quarter in terms of profit, as the company’s pre-tax profit touched $3.8 billion alongside a record profit margin of 9.8%. The automotive company reported adjusted EPS of $0.68 on revenue of $37.7 billion, sharply beating the Street’s estimates of $0.48 per share in earnings on revenue of $35.7 billion. Net income for the quarter was $2.45 billion, up from $1.30 billion in the same quarter of last year. Ford Motor Company’s North American business segment also delivered a record pre-tax profit of $3.1 billion in the quarter.

At the end of last year, 39 hedge funds in our system held stakes in Ford Motor Company. Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management owns 949,352 shares of the company as of March 31.

O’Reilly Automotive, AbbVie, and Altria are adeptly analyzed afore the end of this article is attained.