Morning Brief: Netflix Gets a Boost from UBS

Shares of the hedge fund favorite climbed on a positive report from the investment bank.

Shares of hedge fund favorite Netflix jumped nearly 3 percent, to close at $184.45, after UBS raised its price target on the streaming video giant from $190 to $225. In a note to clients, the investment bank asserted that the company’s third-quarter guidance is conservative based on its analysis, “suggesting subscriber growth momentum has sustained” into the third quarter despite what UBS believes to be a weaker slate of original content compared with the same period last year. This leads UBS to think growth is being driven more by the company’s overall breadth of content than a new big hit. At the end of the second quarter, at least 87 hedge funds held a position in the stock, according to Goldman Sachs. Of those, 16 held Netflix shares among their top-ten holdings.

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Shares of activist favorite Buffalo Wild Wings slumped about 5 percent, to close at $99.90. There was no apparent news on the stock. Earlier this year Macato Capital Management secured three seats on the board of directors of the casual dining chain in a proxy fight. However, the stock is down about 30 percent since the activist hedge fund firm initially starting buying the shares.

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Point72 Asset Management, Steven Cohen’s family office, disclosed it more than tripled its stake in Global Blood Therapeutics, to nearly 2.3 million shares, or 5.2 percent of the clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, according to a regulatory filing. The company is focused on what it describes as “novel therapeutics to treat grievous blood-based disorders with significant unmet need.”

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Sponsored

Two Sigma Ventures participated in the $60 million Series B round of financing for Recursion Pharmaceuticals, which is using machine learning to help find new targets for existing drug compounds, according to techcrunch.com. The financing was oversubscribed. This was Two Sigma’s first investment in the company.

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