Why Valeant, Oclaro, Time Warner, and More Are in the Spotlight

Crude futures are in the green today as investors look forward to today’s upcoming EIA data dump. Besides energy securities, traders are also closely watching Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX), Nike Inc (NYSE:NKE), Oclaro, Inc. (NASDAQ:OCLR), AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T), and Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX). In this article, let’s analyze why the five stocks are trending and examine elite fund sentiment toward them using the latest 13F data.

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 39.7% gains over the past 12 months and outperformed the 24.1% gain enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs. Our enhanced small-cap hedge fund strategy returned more than 45% over the last 12 months and outperformed SPY by more than 30 percentage points over the last 4.5 years (see details here).

Copyright: ralwel / 123RF Stock Photo

Traders are watching Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX) after Neil Maruoka of Canaccord trimmed his price target on the pharmaceutical giant to $12 per share from the previous $17. Maruoka notes that Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square recent move to sell out of Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX) gives credence to the thesis of slower growth for the company in the quarters ahead. The divestment of major assets at shareholder friendly prices could also be a challenge. If Valeant can’t grow fast enough or sell its assets at high enough prices, the company’s big debt burden could be a problem.

 shares have opened in the green after UBS analyst Michael Beinetti bumped his price target on the sporting giant to $67 from $61. Beinettti thinks Nike’s guidance is conservative and believes the company’s futures orders will stabilize in the third quarter. The analyst has a ‘Buy’ rating on the stock. Of the around 742 top funds we track, 48 funds owned $2.84 billion of Nike Inc (NYSE:NKE) and accounted for 3.40% of the float on December 31, versus 55 funds and $3.72 billion respectively on September 30.

Oclaro, Inc. (NASDAQ:OCLR) is almost 4% in the green after Richard Shannon of Craig-Hallum termed the stock’s current levels as a ‘great buying opportunity’. Shannon thinks that trader concerns over Chinese inventory aren’t warranted and that Oclaro is the cheapest in the optical sector, suggesting good risk/reward. Needless to say Shannon has a ‘Buy’ rating on the name. 40 top funds were long Oclaro, Inc. (NASDAQ:OCLR) at the end of the fourth quarter, down one from the previous quarter.

On the next page, we examine why traders are buzzing about AT&T Inc, and Time Warner Inc.