Trading Ideas

Activist investors who are shaking up Corporate America with calls for operational fixes, refreshed boards and even sales of a company are delivering their best returns in six years with double-digit gains for 2019 after big losses in 2018. The surge in returns is energizing experienced corporate agitators as well as newcomers and may force more companies into costly battles with shareholders over their corporate future next year, managers, lawyers and bankers said. Through the end of November, activist managers on average returned 13.09%, according to data from Hedge Fund Research, which tracks various investment strategies’ returns. …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Oil traded above $60 a barrel ahead of U.S. government data forecast to show crude stockpiles shrank, while Iraq trimmed output as Saudi Arabia applied pressure on nations to better comply with cuts.Futures were steady in New York after adding 0.1% on Monday. American crude stockpiles fell by 1.7 million barrels last week, according to a Bloomberg survey before Energy Information Administration data on Friday. U.S. industry figures are due later Tuesday. Iraq pared output by 110,000 barrels a day in December, according to Petro-Logistics SA.Oil has rallied about 10% this month after the U.S. and China made …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — China’s ByteDance Inc. created one of the country’s rare global hits with the addictive video app TikTok. Now the U.S. government is threatening that success as officials in Washington warn the service presents a security threat.The Beijing-based company, led by Chief Executive Officer Yiming Zhang, is weighing a range of options to address those concerns, according to people familiar with the matter. Advisors are pitching everything from an aggressive legal defense and operational separation for TikTok to sale of a majority stake, said the people, asking not to be named because the discussions are private. Selling more than …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — China’s ByteDance Inc. created one of the country’s rare global hits with the addictive video app TikTok. Now the U.S. government is threatening that success as officials in Washington warn the service presents a security threat.The Beijing-based company, led by Chief Executive Officer Yiming Zhang, is weighing a range of options to address those concerns, according to people familiar with the matter. Advisors are pitching everything from an aggressive legal defense and operational separation for TikTok to sale of a majority stake, said the people, asking not to be named because the discussions are private. Selling more than …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Boeing Co. has disclosed a new batch of internal messages related to the 737 Max program to federal regulators.The documents were turned over to the Federal Aviation Administration on Monday, the agency said in a statement. The disclosure came on the same day that Boeing ousted its chief executive officer.This was the second time that Boeing has delayed turning over to the FAA sensitive messages related to the development of the 737 Max jetliner, which was grounded in March after a design flaw was linked to two fatal crashes, in Indonesia and Ethiopia. The earlier episode prompted a …read more […]

Newly named Chief Executive David Calhoun, 62, was made Boeing’s chairman two months ago, in the midst of the crisis that has rocked the company since two fatal crashes led to the grounding of its 737 MAX. Calhoun became chairman of the Caterpillar Inc board shortly after federal agents raided its headquarters in March 2017, headed a General Electric division that included airplane engines after the Sept. 11 attacks, and led media research company Nielsen’s effort to go public. “Having seen him run GE’s aviation business after 9/11, I know he can execute under pressure,” former GE Chief …read more […]

Oil prices edged higher on Tuesday after Russia’s energy minister, Alexander Novak, said cooperation with OPEC on supporting the market would continue and as analysts forecast a second weekly decline in U.S. crude inventories. U.S. West Texas Intermediate was 4 cents higher at $60.56 a barrel. OPEC, Russia and other producers which have linked up to curtail production and support prices will continue their cooperation as long as it is “effective and brings results,” Novak said in an interview on Monday. …read more […]

Advance Auto Parts has acquired the DieHard brand for $200 million from Sears’ owner Transformco. DieHard batteries will be sold at both chains. …read more […]

The 700+ hedge funds and famous money managers tracked by Insider Monkey have already compiled and submitted their 13F filings for the third quarter, which unveil their equity positions as of September 30. We went through these filings, fixed typos and other more significant errors and identified the changes in hedge fund portfolios. Our extensive […] …read more […]

Looking for stocks with high upside potential? Just follow the big players within the hedge fund industry. Why should you do so? Let’s take a brief look at what statistics have to say about hedge funds’ stock picking abilities to illustrate. The Standard and Poor’s 500 Index returned approximately 26% in 2019 (through November 22nd). Conversely, hedge […] …read more […]

Hedge funds are not perfect. They have their bad picks just like everyone else. Facebook, a stock hedge funds have loved dearly, lost nearly 40% of its value at one point in 2018. Although hedge funds are not perfect, their consensus picks do deliver solid returns, however. Our data show the top 20 S&P 500 […] …read more […]

Amid an overall bull market, many stocks that smart money investors were collectively bullish on surged through the end of November. Among them, Facebook and Microsoft ranked among the top 3 picks and these stocks gained 54% and 51% respectively. Our research shows that most of the stocks that smart money likes historically generate strong […] …read more […]

Amid an overall bull market, many stocks that smart money investors were collectively bullish on surged through the end of November. Among them, Facebook and Microsoft ranked among the top 3 picks and these stocks gained 54% and 51% respectively. Our research shows that most of the stocks that smart money likes historically generate strong […] …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Defaults across Asia may be headed even higher next year, with trouble seen especially in China and India.Many investors expect fewer bailouts by the Chinese government after it recently let commodities trader Tewoo Group default in the biggest failure on a dollar bond by a state-owned firm in two decades. Companies in the region have been on a buying spree fueled by debt. Those factors could make things even worse in 2020 after China onshore defaults rose to a record in 2019.As some economies in Asia slow, companies are left vulnerable to any tightening in liquidity. A rise …read more […]

“Since 2006, value stocks (IVE vs IVW) have underperformed 11 of the 13 calendar years and when they beat growth, it wasn’t by much. Cumulatively, through this week, it has been a 122% differential (up 52% for value vs up 174% for growth). This appears to be the longest and most severe drought for value […] …read more […]