Why Traders Are Talking About Expedia, Xerox, Priceline and 2 Other Stocks Today

It’s Friday and Donald Trump has reportedly found his likely Vice Presidential running mate in the form of Indiana governor Mike Pence. Despite Mr. Trump making several high-profile media stumbles of late, he and Hillary Clinton are very close to each other in national and swing state polls. Although it is unclear how the markets will react to a Trump presidency, investors currently have no fear given that the VIX is trading around 13 and the S&P and Dow are in record territory.

Among the stocks trending this morning are Expedia Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE), Priceline Group Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN), Xerox Corp (NYSE:XRX), RR Donnelley & Sons Co (NASDAQ:RRD), and Fairmount Santrol Holdings Inc (NYSE:FMSA). Let’s take a closer look at why each stock is in the spotlight and use SEC filings to determine how the world’s greatest investors are positioned in them.

At Insider Monkey, we track around 765 hedge funds and 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. The key is to focus on the small-cap picks of these funds, which are usually less followed by the broader market and allow for larger price inefficiencies (see the details here).

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Traders Watching Travel Sensitive Stocks after Massacre in France

Expedia Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE) and Priceline Group Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN) are in the spotlight today after a 31-year-old Tunisian terrorist named Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhle plowed a truck into a crowd in the French city of Nice during Bastille Day celebrations. According to officials, 84 people have died from the incident, including more than a dozen children. The incident marks the third mass terrorist attack since in France since January 2015.

Traders are watching the stocks of the two online travel services portals because the string of high-profile attacks could lower demand for travel to Europe and elsewhere. Priceline and Expedia shares had done well this year, rallying by 5% and 8% year-to-date respectively through yesterday’s trading. Bulls hope investors will brush off the incident like they have done for the last two terror attacks. Of the 766 active funds that we track, 65 owned $3.48 billion worth of Expedia Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE) shares in aggregate as of March 31, while 87 funds were long Priceline Group Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN), with their collective holdings valued at $7.24 billion.

Fairmount Declines on Soft Preliminary Earnings

Fairmount Santrol Holdings Inc (NYSE:FMSA) shares have crumbled by 18% today after the fracking sand manufacturer issued soft preliminary second quarter results. For the period, Fairmount expects a loss of $0.56-to-$0.58 per share, far worse than analysts’ estimate of a loss of $0.12 per share. Fairmount also expects sales of $113 million-to-$115 million, which would widely miss expectations of $136.7 million. The under-performance is mainly due to lower than expected demand for proppants, caused by the weak crude prices. Six top funds in our database has long positions in Fairmount Santrol Holdings Inc (NYSE:FMSA) as of March 31.

Xerox Rejects Proposal

According to the Wall Street Journal, Xerox Corp (NYSE:XRX) has rejected RR Donnelley & Sons Co (NASDAQ:RRD)‘s merger proposal to combine their copier businesses. Xerox’s Board of Directors apparently didn’t think the merger proposal, which called for hundreds of millions of dollars in cost cuts, would deliver the value that long-term shareholders were looking for. Xerox still intends to split into two companies in the future, with one being its business-outsourcing division, and the other being its copier and printer segment. Jim Simons‘ Renaissance Technologies was one of the top shareholders of RR Donnelley & Sons Co (NASDAQ:RRD) at the end of March, owning 1.02 million shares, while Cliff Asness‘ quant fund AQR Capital Management was the second largest shareholder of Xerox Corp (NYSE:XRX) in our database as of the same period, holding 10.86 million shares of the company in its portfolio.

Disclosure: None