Why These Five Stocks Are in Spotlight on Monday

Crude futures are almost 2% in the red today as some traders remain concerned about the near-record inventories around the world. Nevertheless, the US stock market opened higher following an eventful evening.

Among the stocks trending this Monday are Lennox International Inc. (NYSE:LII), Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM), InterOil Corporation (USA) (NYSE:IOC), CIGNA Corporation (NYSE:CI), and Kennedy-Wilson Holdings Inc (NYSE:KW). In this article, we take a closer look at the five companies and see what the investors from our database think about them.

Hedge fund sentiment is an important metric for assessing the long-term profitability. At Insider Monkey, we track over 700 hedge funds, whose quarterly 13F filings we analyze and determine their collective sentiment towards several thousand stocks. However, our research has shown that the best strategy is to follow hedge funds into their small-cap picks. This approach can allow monthly returns of nearly 95 basis points above the market, as we determined through extensive backtests covering the period between 1999 and 2012 (see the details here).

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Lennox Reports Earnings

Lennox International Inc. (NYSE:LII) earned $2.53 per share on revenue of $1.02 billion for its second quarter, beating the bottom-line estimates by $0.18 per share but missing the top line expectations by $20 million. Sales rose by 2.8% year-over-year, led by strong demand from the company’s residential heating and cooling and refrigeration segments. Management estimates fiscal year 2016 adjusted EPS to be $6.50-$6.90 and for revenue to rise three to seven percent year-over-year on a constant currency basis. Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management raised its stake by 41% in Lennox International Inc. (NYSE:LII) to just over 221,000 shares at the end of March.

More Details on Exxon Mobil’s Bid For InterOil

Traders are watching InterOil Corporation (USA) (NYSE:IOC) today after the company’s board of directors announced that  Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM)‘s unsolicited acquisition proposal was superior to Oil Search’s buyout offer. Under the terms of Exxon’s offer, InterOil shareholders will receive $45 of Exxon Mobil shares for each share of InterOil they own. InterOil shareholders will also receive a contingent resource payment of $7.07 in cash per share for each tcfe gross resource certification of the Elk-Antelope field above 6.2 tcfe, up to a maximum of 10 tcfe. Oil Search has until July 21 to make a better offer. Among the funds we track, 60 funds owned $2.5 billion worth of Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM)’s stock and 10 funds owned shares of InterOil Corporation (USA) (NYSE:IOC) at the end of the first quarter.

On the next page, we find out why CIGNA Corporation, and Kennedy-Wilson Holdings are trending.