Thursday, July 31, 2014

Top High Tech Stocks To Own Right Now

Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN  ) is set to report earnings after the market closes on Thursday. And with the stock near an all-time high, there is a lot riding on these results.

Here are three things the online retail giant needs to deliver if it wants to stay in Wall Street's good graces.

Trounced expectations
Amazon could start by beating sales and profit estimates. That won't be hard as far as earnings go. Analysts expect just $0.06 a share in profit this quarter after Amazon booked a tiny $7 million -- or $0.01 a share -- in the same quarter last year. Luckily for the retailer, investors haven't demanded earnings growth from the company. It has managed just $42 million in operating income in the last 12 months, a period over which the stock has added billions in market capitalization.

The bar is set much higher for sales growth, though. Amazon will need to boost revenue to at least $15.74 billion to meet expectations. That's about 23% higher than what it reported in the year-ago quarter. eBay, by comparison, managed just 12% sales growth in its online marketplace business over the second quarter.

Hot Construction Stocks For 2015: Green Automotive Co (GACR)

Green Automotive Company, incorporated on November 15, 1996, is a vehicle design, engineering, manufacturing and distribution company. The Company also provides after sales program. It possesses a portfolio of businesses and is active in three main market segments: Cutting edge technology development, engineering and design with a focus on zero and low emission vehicle solutions; Manufacturing and customization of vehicles for markets with the potential to be converted into low emission or electric vehicles, such as shuttle buses, taxis, commercial vehicles, and After sales services for electric or low emission vehicles, including servicing and repair. On December 14, 2012, the Company closed its merger with Matter of Time I Co. As per the merger agreement, Matter of Time I Co. dissolved into and became a part of Green Automotive Company, with Green Automotive Company being the surviving corporation. In January 2014, Green Automotive Co Inc acquired a 21.63% interest in Viridian Motor Corp Inc.

The Company's two divisions servicing the three segments are Liberty Electric Cars Ltd and Newport Coachworks Inc. Liberty Electric Cars Ltd designs and develops EV technologies for use in its own converted vehicles and for sale to original equipment manufacturers (OEM��) for incorporation into its production. In addition, it provides an aftermarket program for electric vehicle users to ensure the longevity of their vehicles. Newport Coachworks Inc. specializes in building shuttle buses, running on a variety of energy sources from petrol and diesel though to compressed natural gas (CNG).

The Company competes with Zytec, AMPD, Siemens, Tiffany, Krystal, Ford, and General Motors, Cummins and Freightliner.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By John Udovich]

    The electric vehicle industry and stocks like Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA), Kandi Technologies Group Inc (NASDAQ: KNDI) and Green Automotive Co (OTCMKTS: GACR) continue to produce a steady flow of interesting and relevant news for investors and traders alike with the following news being worth paying close attention to:

  • [By Bryan Murphy]

    There's one budding company that finds itself squarely in the middle of common sense and practically in terms of battery-operated vehicles, however, even if it's not a household name yet. It's Green Automotive Co. (OTCMKTS:GACR), and the company understands EVs have to be affordable as well as functional. It also understands that passenger cars aren't the only great opportunity for electric drive train technology. That's why GACR is poised to be a compelling long-term investment idea for those who truly believe electric vehicles are here to stay.

  • [By James E. Brumley]

    While there's no denying that Green Automotive Co. (OTCMKTS:GACR) is an electric car 'play', up until this point there's also been no confusion that it wasn't a full-blown manufacturer like Tesla Motors Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) or Kandi Technologies Group Inc. (NASDAQ:KNDI). Today's news from Green Automotive, however, leaves one to wonder if investors need to start seeing GACR in the same light as they see integrate EV makers like TSLA or KNDI.

Top High Tech Stocks To Own Right Now: MKS Instruments Inc.(MKSI)

MKS Instruments, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides instruments, subsystems, and process control solutions that measure, control, power, monitor, and analyze parameters of manufacturing processes worldwide. It offers instruments and control systems, such as pressure measurement and control, materials delivery, gas composition analysis, and control and information technology products. The company also provides power and reactive gas generation products comprising power delivery, reactive gas generation, processing thin films, and equipment cleaning products; and vacuum technology products, including vacuum containment components, vacuum gauges, vacuum valves, effluent management subsystems and custom stainless steel chambers, vessels, and pharmaceutical process equipment hardware and housings. Its products are used in the semiconductor processing steps, such as depositing thin films of material onto silicon wafer substrates, and etching and cleaning circuit patt erns; manufacture of flat panel displays, light emitting diodes, solar cells, data storage media, and other coatings, including architectural glass; energy generation and environmental monitoring processes, such as nuclear fuel processing, fuel cell research, greenhouse gas monitoring, and chemical agent detection; medical instrument sterilization; consumable medical supply manufacturing; and pharmaceutical applications. The company also offers maintenance and repair, software maintenance, installation, and training services. It serves semiconductor capital equipment and device manufacturers, thin film capital equipment manufacturers, energy generation, environmental monitoring, and manufacturing companies, as well as government, university and industrial research laboratories. The company sells its products primarily through its direct sales force, as well as through sales representatives and agents. MKS Instruments, Inc. was founded in 1961 and is headquartered in Andover, Massachusetts.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Ben Axler]

    In the table below, we've listed a sample of small-cap semiconductor capital equipment stocks such as Entegris (ENTG), Advanced Energy Industries (AEIS), ATMI Inc. (ATMI), MKS Instruments (MKSI), Photronics Inc. (PLAB), Rudolph Technologies (RTEC),FormFactor (FORM) and Mattson Technology (MTSN). The peers trade at approximately 1.0x and 15.5x 2014E revenues and EPS, respectively. Furthermore, the average peer trades at 2.1x tangible book value. However, these multiples are based on average 2014E industry revenue and earnings growth of 18% and 119%, respectively. Axcelis is poised to grow at a rate substantially above the industry average.

  • [By James E. Brumley]

    What do small cap stocks MKS Instruments, Inc. (NASDAQ:MKSI), Tanger Factory Outlet Centers Inc. (NYSE:SKT), and Kaman Corporation (NYSE:KAMN) have in common? Absolutely nothing, on the surface, and no, it's not a setup for painfully bad punchline. There is a common thread among KAMN, SKT, and MKSI right now, however... they're all three going into my mental (though publicly-tracked) portfolio this afternoon.

Top High Tech Stocks To Own Right Now: IPC The Hospitalist Company Inc.(IPCM)

IPC The Hospitalist Company, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides hospitalist services in the United States. It engages in providing, managing, and coordinating the care of hospitalized patients and serves as the inpatient partner of primary care physicians and specialists. As of December 31, 2011, the company with its 1,201 affiliated hospitalists, including physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants that are organized into medical group practices, provided hospitalist solutions at approximately 365 hospitals, and 550 other inpatient and post-acute care facilities primarily in 25 states. It also offers administrative and professional services, including information management system, transition management, regional management, recruiting, training, financial reporting, billing and collection, risk management, and compliance services to affiliated hospitalists. The company serves patients, primary care physicians, specialists, acute care hospitals, alter native sites of inpatient care, and health plans. IPC The Hospitalist Company, Inc., formerly known as InPatient Consultants Management, Inc., was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in North Hollywood, California.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Jake L'Ecuyer]

    Equities Trading DOWN
    Shares of IPC The Hospitalist Company (NASDAQ: IPCM) were down 2.60 percent to $56.98 after Credit Suisse downgraded the stock from Outperform to Neutral.

Top High Tech Stocks To Own Right Now: Rallye SA (RAL)

Rallye SA is a France-based holding company organized around two sectors of activity: large scale distribution to the food stores and supermarkets and distribution of sports items. The Company is present in France, Latin America, Poland, and Asia through its interests in brands, such as Geant, Monoprix, Leader Price, and United Grocers Cash & Carry, among others. It also has its interst in the Groupe Go Sport. Rallye SA is notably present in France, the United States, Luxembourg, Poland and Colombia, among others. The Company operates through its subsidiaries and affliated companies, such as Cobivia SAS, L��abitation Moderne de Boulogne, Magasins Jean SAS, Matignon Sablons SAS, MFD SA, Parande SAS, Casino Guichaqrd Perrachon DA, Groupe Go Sport, Sivigral SCI and French Develompent Venture SA. Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Holly LaFon]

    A risk involved with the company is that its Republic Bank & Trust business derives 78% of its net income from TRS, which offers bank products that help get customers who electronically file their tax returns their payments. RB&T is only of the few financial institutions in the U.S. that provide the service. Under the program, the taxpayer may receive a Refund Anticipation Loan (RAL), which has been questioned by various governmental and consumer groups. In May 2011, RB&T received an order to cease and desist which could result in an order by the FDIC to terminate its RAL program. It has a hearing on Feb. 12, 2012 in Kentucky regarding the matter.

Top High Tech Stocks To Own Right Now: BG Group PLC (BRGXF.PK)

BG Group plc (BG Group) is a natural gas company. The Company is engaged in the exploration, development and production of natural gas and oil. It operates in three business segments: Exploration and Production (E&P), Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and Transmission and Distribution (T&D). Effective January 1, 2012, the Company was managed across three regions: Americas and Europe; Africa, Central and South Asia, and Australia and East Asia, supported by Global Energy Marketing and Shipping (GEMS) and BG Advance. The Company has interests in 25 countries on five continents. During the year ended December 31, 2011, the Company acquired an interest in, and operatorship of, offshore blocks L10A (BG Group 40%) and L10B (BG Group 45%) in Kenya. During 2011, the Company acquired additional Marcellus shale properties in partnership with EXCO Resources, Inc. (EXCO). In June 2013, BG Group PLC announced that it has completed the sale of its 65.12% holding in Gujarat Gas Company Limited (GGCL). Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Heather Ingrassia]

    On Thursday, August 15, GasLog (GLOG) announced that it had ordered two new 174K cbm Tri-Fuel Diesel Electric LNG carriers from Samsung Heavy Industries. These carriers are expected to be delivered in 2016 which is the same year the company will begin seven-year charters with BG Group (BRGYY.PK) (BRGXF.PK).

Top High Tech Stocks To Own Right Now: Lucara Diamond Corp (LUCRF.PK)

Lucara Diamond Corp. (Lucara) is a diamond development company focused in Africa. The business of Lucara consists of the acquisition, exploration and development of diamond properties. The principal assets of Lucara and the focus of Lucara�� development and exploration activities are its interest in mining, exploration and prospecting diamond licenses in Lesotho, Botswana and Namibia. The Company�� project Mothae Diamond Project is located in northeast Lesotho. In May 2010, it commenced test mining in Mothae Diamond Project-Lesotho. Mothae Diamonds (PTY) Ltd (Mothae Diamonds), an indirect 75% owned subsidiary of the Company, holds a 100% interest in the Mothae project. As of March 23, 2011, a total of 175,000 dry tons had been processed from the C domain, producing 5,484 carats at an average grade of 3.13 carats per hundred tons. In December 2010, the Company completed the acquisition of African Diamonds PLC, upon which Lucara indirectly owns 100% of the AK6 Diamond Project. Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By John Leonard]

    Lucara Diamond (LUCRF.PK) is still being valued as a riskier exploration stage miner rather than a profitable and growing producer. The current "backward looking" valuation fails to reflect the recent and significant operational transition.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Best Consumer Service Stocks To Buy For 2014

The following video is from Monday's installment of Where the Money Is, in which Fool analysts Matt Koppenheffer and David Hanson highlight for investors the most important stock news from the financial sector.

In this segment, Matt discusses an article from The Wall Street Journal, which addressed the conflicting motivations between banking regulators and the big banks. As the spread between the interest rate at which banks can borrow money and the interest rate they are able to get for lending, or the net interest margin, continues to compress, many banks have been reducing the amount of long-term debt they have been carrying, as that often has a higher interest rate. Matt tells investors what it would mean for the big banks if regulations are imposed that require a higher amount of long-term debt to be maintained on these banks' balance sheets in preparation for the next banking crisis.

Bank of America's stock doubled in 2012. Is there more yet to come? With significant challenges still ahead, it's critical to have a solid understanding of this megabank before adding it to your portfolio. In The Motley Fool's premium research report on B of A, analysts Anand Chokkavelu, CFA, and Matt Koppenheffer, Financials bureau chief, lift the veil on the bank's operations, including detailing three reasons to buy and three reasons to sell. Click here now to claim your copy.

Top 5 Forestry Stocks To Watch For 2015: Deluxe Corporation (DLX)

Deluxe Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides personalized printed products, promotional products, and merchandising materials in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Its Small Business Services segment offers printed products, including business checks, promotional products, marketing materials, and related services, as well as retail packaging supplies and a suite of business services comprising Web design and hosting, fraud protection, payroll, logo design, search engine marketing, business networking, and other Web-based services to small businesses. This segment also offers printed forms, such as billing forms, work orders, job proposals, purchase orders, invoices, and personnel forms; computer forms; and stationery, letterhead, envelopes, greeting cards and labels, and business cards in various formats and ink colors. It sells its products through mail and the Internet, referrals from financial institutions and telecommunications clients, independent distributors and dealers, and sales representatives. The company?s Financial Services segment provides check programs for personal and business checks, fraud prevention and monitoring services, customer acquisition campaigns, marketing communications, regulatory program services, and customer loyalty programs to banks, credit unions, and financial services companies primarily through direct sales force. Its Direct Checks segment sells personal and business checks, and related products and services directly to consumers through direct response marketing and the Internet. Deluxe also offers online financial management tools that provide banks with daily access to their financial position and general ledger information. The company was formerly known as Deluxe Check Printers, Incorporated and changed its name to Deluxe Corporation in 1988. Deluxe Corporation was founded in 1915 and is headquartered in Shoreview, Minnesota.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Eric Volkman]

    Deluxe (NYSE: DLX  ) is opening its checkbook for a fresh round of shareholder payouts. The company has declared its latest quarterly dividend, which is to be $0.25 per share, paid on September 3 to shareholders of record as of August 19.�This is in line with the firm's long-standing distribution policy; it has handed out that amount in every quarter stretching back to July 2006.

Best Consumer Service Stocks To Buy For 2014: Facebook Inc (FB)

Facebook, Inc. (Facebook), incorporated in July 2004, is engaged in building products to create utility for users, developers, and advertisers. People use Facebook to stay connected with their friends and family, to discover what is going on in the world around them, and to share and express what matters to them to the people they care about. Developers can use the Facebook Platform to build applications and Websites that integrate with Facebook to reach its global network of users and to build personalized and social products. Advertisers can engage with more than 900 million monthly active users (MAUs) on Facebook or subsets of its users based on information they have chosen to share with the Company, such as their age, location, gender, or interests. It offers advertisers a combination of reach, relevance, social context and engagement.

Products for Users

The Company�� products for users are free of charge and available on the Web, mobile Web, and mobile platforms, such as Android and iOS. It launched Timeline in September 2011, as an enhanced and updated version of the Facebook Profile. Timeline allows users to organize and display the events and activities that matter most to them, enabling them to curate their memories in a searchable personal narrative that is organized chronologically. Users choose what information to share on their Timeline, such as their interests, photos, education, work history, relationship status, and contact information, and users can control with whom each piece of content is shared on their Timeline. The Facebook News Feed is the core feature of a user�� homepage and is a regularly updating list of stories from friends, Pages, and other entities to which a user is connected on Facebook. It includes posts, photos, event updates, group memberships, app updates, and other activities. Each user�� News Feed is personalized based on his or her interests and the sharing activity of the user�� friends.

Facebook is a photo upload! ing service on the Web. Users can upload an unlimited number of high resolution photos, create photo albums, and share them with their friends or any audience they choose. Users can also upload and share videos. Users can set specific privacy settings for each of their photo albums and videos, making them visible to everyone, or only to certain friends. Users can arrange their photos, add captions, and tag people in a photo or video. Tagging allows users to identify a person in a photo or video as one of their friends. Its messaging products include email, chat, and text messaging. Groups are shared Facebook pages for groups of users to discuss common interests. Lists allow users to organize their friends in order to filter the stories shown in their News Feeds and reach or exclude specific people when they share on Facebook. Through Events, users can organize gatherings, manage invitations, and send event notifications and reminders to their friends. From the Events page, users can create a new event, check out upcoming events of interest to them and their friends, and view previous events.

Through Places, users can share their location and see where their friends are. They are able to see if any of their friends are nearby. Users can also check in to Places to tell their friends where they are, tag their friends in the Places they visit, or view Comments their friends have made about the Places they visit. Using Subscribe, users can sign up to receive public posts in their News Feeds from other Facebook users of interest, such as celebrities, thought leaders, and other public figures. Ticker is a live stream of the real-time activities of a user�� friends and the Pages and other entities to which the user is connected. On the top of each Facebook page, a highlighted icon is displayed to users when there is relevant and new information available to them, such as a new friend request, a new message from a friend, or an alert that the user has been tagged in a photo posted by a friend.

A Facebook Page is a public profile that allows anyone, including artists, public figures, businesses, brands, organizations, and charities to create a presence on Facebook and engage with the Facebook community. A Page owner can connect with interested users in order to provide updates, answer questions, receive feedback, or otherwise stimulate interest in the owner�� messages, products, and services. When a Facebook user likes a Page, the Page owner has the opportunity to publish stories to the user�� News Feed on an ongoing basis. In addition, when a Facebook user Likes or Comments on a post by a Page owner, that user�� action may be shared with the user�� friends via News Feed to drive awareness to a wider circle of users, increasing the Page�� exposure, recognition, and engagement. The Company does not charge for Pages, nor does it charge for the resulting organic distribution. As of March 31, 2012, there were more than 42 million Pages with 10 or more Likes, including Harvard, Lady Gaga, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Starbucks, and Boo (the World�� Cutest Dog), as well as millions of local businesses.

Products for Developers

The Facebook Platform is a set of tools and application programming interfaces (APIs) that developers can use to build social apps on Facebook or to integrate their Websites with Facebook. As of March 31, 2012, more than nine million applications and Websites were integrated with Facebook. Some of the elements of the Facebook Platform include open graph, social plugins, payments, applications on Facebook, desktop applications, mobile applications and platform-integrated Websites. The Open Graph is a set of APIs that developers can use to build applications and Websites that enable users to share their activities with friends on Facebook. Social plugins are social features that developers can easily integrate with their Websites by incorporating a single line of HyperText Markup Language (HTML) code.

Facebook provides an o! nline pay! ments infrastructure that enables developers to receive payments from users through a secure system. The Company has designed its Payments infrastructure to streamline the buying process between its users and developers. Its Payments system enables users to purchase virtual or digital goods from developers and third-party Websites by using debit and credit cards, PayPal, mobile phone payments, gift cards or other methods. Applications on Facebook run within the Facebook Website. The Facebook Platform has also enabled new types of social applications on Facebook beyond games to facilitate social sharing and discovery of music, news, television programming, and everyday interests, such as cooking, fitness, and travel. Developers can also build desktop apps that run on the operating system of a personal computer and offer experiences that are integrated with the Facebook Platform. The Facebook Platform for mobile has enabled developers to create engaging mobile applications that integrate with Facebook�� social and personalization capabilities. Websites can integrate with Facebook using social plugins, such as the Like button or design more deeply integrated social experiences built around users and their friends.

Products for Advertisers and Marketers

Facebook offers products that enable advertisers and marketers to leverage its combination of reach, relevance, social context, and engagement. When creating a Facebook ad, advertisers can specify a title, content, image, and destination Web page or Facebook Page to which a user is directed if he or she clicks on the ad. Advertisers can further engage their intended audiences by incorporating social context with their marketing messages. Social context includes actions a user�� friends have taken, such as Liking the advertiser�� Facebook Page. Ads with social context are shown only to a user�� friends, and the user�� privacy settings apply to social ads. It offers a range of ads with social context, from an ad with a sing! le Like b! utton to its Premium Ad paired with social context, which allows advertisers to highlight the interactions of a user�� friends with a brand or product.

Sponsored stories enable marketers to promote the stories they publish from their Facebook Page to users who have connected with the Page or to amplify the distribution of stories users are already sharing that are relevant to their marketing efforts. When advertisers create an ad campaign with Facebook, they specify the types of users they would like to reach based on information that users chose to share about their age, location, gender, relationship status, educational history, workplace, and interests. Advertisers choose to pay for their ads based on either cost per thousand impressions (CPM) on a fixed or bidded basis or cost per click (CPC) on a bidded basis. Facebook ad analytics enable advertisers to gain insights into which ads were displayed and clicked on. These analytics help advertisers make modifications to their ad campaigns. Advertisers with Facebook Pages can also view the number of users who Liked and Commented on their Page and a newly introduced metric, People Talking About This, which shows how many stories about their brand are being created and shared.

The Company competes with Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Cyworld, Mixi and vKontakte.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Chris Neiger]

    Doesn't anyone use the term "ad" anymore?
    LinkedIn's sponsored updates work in much the same way that Facebook's (NASDAQ: FB  ) or Twitter's promoted messages do. Customers -- in this case, businesses that have a company page on LinkedIn -- can now show featured content such as articles, videos, or pictures to specific sets of LinkedIn members that match the company's desired marketing demographic. In return, they pay LinkedIn on a cost per click or cost per thousand impressions.

  • [By Louis Navellier]

    LinkedIn is a social networking website that contends with the likes of Facebook (FB) and Twitter by catering to professionals looking to advance their careers. But while LinkedIn competes with Facebook and Twitter for user attention, its business is quite different��s career and job markets become increasingly Internet-based, LinkedIn’s services will become even more useful.

  • [By M. Joy, Hayes]

    Other Companies with Majority Control
    Shareholders will face similar limitations at other major companies, including Facebook (NASDAQ: FB  ) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG  ) , where a dual-class voting structure allows insiders to control the majority of share votes without holding a majority of shares. I believe this may cause their interests to diverge from those of average shareholders, with even more frequency than it does for Adelson.

  • [By Hibah Yousuf]

    Twitter, the next hot tech IPO, has not announced a decision yet on where its stock will trade. But many expect Twitter to choose NYSE over Nasdaq because of the problems associated with Facebook's (FB) offering..

Best Consumer Service Stocks To Buy For 2014: Kingdee International Software Group Co Ltd (KGDEF)

Kingdee International Software Group Company Limited is an investment holding company. The principal activities of the Company and its subsidiaries are developing, manufacturing and selling of enterprise management software products and provision of software-related technical services in the People's Republic of China. The Company operates in two segments: enterprise management software business, which is engaged in the sales and implementation of enterprise management software, provision of other related services and sales of hardware related to enterprise management software arrangements, and others, which is engaged in the sales of middleware software business and provision online management services. Its subsidiaries include Beijng Kingdee System Technology Co., Ltd., Kingdee E-commerce Service (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. and others. Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By WWW.MARKETWATCH.COM]

    HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Hong Kong stocks trimmed their gains but held to positive territory Wednesday after data showing China's economic growth accelerated to 7.5% in the second quarter, ticking up from a 7.4% gain in the first quarter. The Hang Seng Index (HK:HSI) inched up 0.2%, off slightly from a 0.3% advance ahead of the data, while the Shanghai Composite Index (CN:SHCOMP) dipped 0.1%. Mainland Chinese power companies posted broad gains, with Huadian Power International Corp. (HK:1071) rallying 4.2% after the company forecast its profit for the first six months of the year would jump 55% to 65% from a year earlier. Other stocks in the sector also attracted investors' interest, with Datang International Power Generation Co. (HK:0991) (DIPGF) (CN:601991) and Huaneng Power International Inc. (HK:0902) (HUNGF) (CN:600011) gaining 2.3% and 1.6%, respectively. Menswear maker China Fordoo Holdings Ltd. (HK:2399) rose 1% on its first day of trading. However, most software and gaming companies declined, with Kingdee International Software Group (HK:0268) (KGDEF) losing 1.4%, bigger rival Kingsoft Corp. (HK:3888) (KSFTF) falling 0.9%, and Forgame Holdings L

Best Consumer Service Stocks To Buy For 2014: Audiovox Corporation(VOXX)

VOXX International Corporation provides automotive and consumer electronic products, and accessories in the United States and internationally. The company?s products include mobile multimedia systems; auto sound systems comprising satellite radio, vehicle security, and remote start systems; portable DVD players; and personal and vehicle tracking devices. It also offers consumer electronics products, such as personal sound amplifiers, MP3 players, digital camcorders, docking stations, digital voice recorders, clock radios, digital picture frames, and home stereos; consumer electronics accessories comprising digital antennas, remote controls, wireless solutions, headphones, HDMI cables, power solutions, and media cleaning and care; and car audio and video products. In addition, the company provides audio products consisting of home theater systems; indoor and outdoor speaker lines; surround sound systems; sub woofers; professional installation products, such as cinema speake rs; and personal audio products, which include iPod docking stations and computer speakers. It markets its products under the Klipsch, RCA, Invision, Jensen, Audiovox, Terk, Acoustic Research, Advent, Code Alarm, CarLink, Omega, Excalibur, Prestige, SURFACE, Jamo, Energy, Mirage, Mac Audio, Magnat, Heco, Schwaiger, Oehlbach, and Incaar brands through a network of power retailers, mass merchandisers, hardware and independent retailers, 12-volt specialists, military exchanges, and automotive manufacturers, as well as through Internet. The company was formerly known as Audiovox Corporation and changed its name to VOXX International Corporation in December, 2011. VOXX International Corporation was founded in 1965 and is headquartered in Hauppauge, New York.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Seth Jayson]

    VOXX International (Nasdaq: VOXX  ) is expected to report Q1 earnings on July 10. Here's what Wall Street wants to see:

    The 10-second takeaway
    Comparing the upcoming quarter to the prior-year quarter, average analyst estimates predict VOXX International's revenues will shrink -2.4% and EPS will decrease -69.2%.

  • [By Monica Gerson]

    VOXX International (NASDAQ: VOXX) is projected to post its Q2 earnings at $0.09 per share on revenue of $186.73 million.

    RPM International (NYSE: RPM) is expected to report its Q1 earnings at $0.71 per share on revenue of $1.13 billion.

  • [By Seth Jayson]

    VOXX International (Nasdaq: VOXX  ) reported earnings on May 14. Here are the numbers you need to know.

    The 10-second takeaway
    For the quarter ended Feb. 28 (Q4), VOXX International beat slightly on revenues and beat expectations on earnings per share.

  • [By Peter Graham]

    The Q1 2015 earnings report for automotive, audio and consumer accessory distributor VOXX International Corp (NASDAQ: VOXX), a potential peer or performance benchmark of Harman International Industries Inc (NYSE: HAR), Skullcandy Inc (NASDAQ: SKUL) and Turtle Beach Corp (NASDAQ: HEAR), is due out after the market closes on Thursday. Aside from the VOXX International Corp earnings report, it should be said that Harman International Industries Inc reported Q3 2014 earnings on May 1st (they beat expectations�and raised their forecast on strong European automotive demand) and will report Q4 2014 earnings on August 7th; Skullcandy Inc reported Q1 2014 earnings on May 1st and will report Q2 2014 near the end of this month; and Turtle Beach Corp reported Q1 2014 earnings on May 12th. However, VOXX International Corp�� last earnings report was a train wreck that led to several analyst downgrades.

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Hot Freight Companies To Own In Right Now

In what UPS (NYSE: UPS  ) CEO Scott Davis calls "a win-win-win for our people, customers, and shareholders," the company has reached a "tentative agreement" with nearly 250,000 Teamsters Union employees on two five-year contracts. The first deal addresses union employees in UPS' packaging unit; the other agreement impacts freight employees, the sides recently announced.

According to the Teamsters announcement, both agreements will "protect [union members'] health-care benefits, provide substantial wage increases and significantly raise contributions to pension and health and welfare benefits." The deals would affect UPS' 140,000 package employees, and the nearly 110,000 Teamsters Union employees in its freight unit.

In addition to the health-care benefits and higher wages, Teamsters said the new agreement would result in 2,000 full-time jobs from the ranks of existing UPS part-time package employees.

Hot Freight Companies To Own In Right Now: Heartland Express Inc (HTLD)

Heartland Express, Inc. (Heartland), incorporated on August 8, 1986, is a short-to-medium haul truckload carrier. The Company provides regional dry van truckload services through its regional terminals plus its corporate headquarters. The Company transports freight for shippers and generally earns revenue based on the number of miles per load delivered. The Company�� primary traffic lanes are between customer locations east of the Rocky Mountains. The Company is a holding company of Heartland Express Inc. of Iowa, Heartland Express Services, Inc., Heartland Express Maintenance Services, Inc. and A & M Express, Inc. Heartland operates nine specialized regional distribution operations in Atlanta, Georgia; Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Chester, Virginia; Columbus, Ohio; Jacksonville, Florida; Kingsport, Tennessee; Olive Branch, Mississippi; Phoenix, Arizona, and Seagoville, Texas. The Company operates maintenance facilities at all regional distribution operating centers along with shop only locations in Fort Smith, Arkansas and O��allon, Missouri. In November 2013, Heartland Express Inc acquired 100% of the stock of Gordon Trucking, Inc.

The Company�� operations department is responsible for maintaining the continuity between the customer�� needs and Heartland�� ability to meet those needs by communicating customer�� expectations to the fleet management group. They are charged with development of customer relationships, ensuring service standards, coordinating proper freight-to-capacity balancing, trailer asset management, and daily tactical decisions pertaining to matching the customer demand with the appropriate capacity within geographical service areas. They assign orders to drivers based on well-defined criteria, such as driver safety and United States Department of Transportation (the DOT) compliance, customer needs and service requirements, on-time service, equipment utilization, driver time at home, operational efficiency, and equipment maintenance needs. Fleet management is r! esponsible for driver management and development. Their responsibilities include meeting the needs of the drivers within the standards that have been set by the organization and communicating the requirements of the customers to the drivers on each order to ensure successful execution. Serving the short-to-medium haul market (500 miles average length of haul in 2012) permits the Company to use primarily single, rather than team drivers and dispatch loads directly from origin to destination without an intermediate equipment change other than for driver scheduling purposes.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Ben Levisohn]

    Shares of Heartland Express (HTLD) rose today despite being cut by Stifel Nicolaus for valuation reasons.

    Bloomberg News

    Shares of Heartland Express have gained 50% this year, trumping the 38% rise in Con-Way (CNW) and the 29% advance in J.B. Hunt Transport Services (JBHT) but lagging Old Dominion Freight Lines (ODFL) and Swift Transportation (SWFT).

    That big gain was enough for Stifel’s John Larkin say no mas and cut his rating on Heartland Express. They explain why:

    Downgrading from Buy to Hold as the company’s shares appear fully and fairly valued. In fact, shares have recently traded through our 12-month fair value estimate of $19 (or 16.0x our 2015 EPS estimate of $1.15 plus ~$0.68 per share NPV of future cash tax benefits).

    Rating change is primarily valuation based as well as from our view that most transportation equities are trading ahead of the still mediocre underlying freight market fundamentals.

    BB&T’s Thomas Albrecht and team, who upgraded Heartland Express to Buy from Hold yesterday, explain why they think the stock will do just fine regardless of the economy:

    Heartland is an intriguing play upon both a slow-growth economy and a rapidly growing one (along with tight capacity). Many carriers are only able to thrive in the latter environment. With HTLD we believe that even in a sluggish economy it has a self-generating EPS story through the integration and growth of Gordon. Q3’13, a very difficult quarter for TL carriers, saw HTLD post a 79.3% OR versus 83.3%.

    The timing of the Gordon deal seems ideal, similar to the Great Coastal acquisition in mid-2002. Back then the TL market was stabilizing, but had yet to really take off, which occurred in the back half of 2003. Those 4-5 quarters allowed HTLD to assess customers, integrate operations, consolidate facilities and get ready for the next cycle. By the time that occurred HTLD was ready to take advantage of the capacity

  • [By Jake L'Ecuyer]

    Equities Trading UP
    Heartland Express (NASDAQ: HTLD) shot up 19.72 percent to $17.14 after the company reported that it has acquired Gordon Trucking for $300 million.

  • [By Lauren Pollock]

    Heartland Express Inc.(HTLD), a trucking firm steered by the Gerdin family, agreed to acquire another family controlled peer, Gordon Trucking Inc., in a transaction valued at about $300 million. Shares climbed 12% to $16.05 in light premarket trading.

  • [By Ben Levisohn]

    Heartland Express (HTLD) has dropped 2.2% to $19.12 after it was cut to Hold from Buy at Stifel Nicolaus.

    Allergan (AGN) was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo.

Hot Freight Companies To Own In Right Now: Marten Transport Ltd (MRTN)

Marten Transport, Ltd. is a temperature-sensitive truckload carrier. The Company specializes in transporting and distributing food and other consumer packaged goods that require a temperature-controlled or insulated environment. It operates throughout the United States and in parts of Canada and Mexico. The Company operates in two segments: Truckload and Logistics. During the year ended December 31, 2011, approximately 81% of its truckload revenue resulted from hauling temperature-sensitive products and 19% from hauling dry freight. Its long-haul traffic lanes are between the Midwest and the West Coast, Southwest, Southeast, and the East Coast, as well as from California to the Pacific Northwest. It provides regional truckload carrier services in the Southeast, West Coast, Midwest, South Central and Northeast regions.

The Company derives truckload revenue from fuel surcharges, loading and unloading activities, equipment detention and other ancillary services. Its operating revenue also includes revenue reported within its Logistics segment, which consists of revenue from its internal brokerage and intermodal operations, and through its 45% interest in MW Logistics, LLC (MWL), a third-party provider of logistics services to the transportation industry. Brokerage services involve arranging for another company to transport freight for the Company�� customers, while it retains the billing, collection and customer management responsibilities. Intermodal services involve the transport of its trailers on railroad flatcars for a portion of a trip, with the balance of the trip using its tractors or, to a lesser extent, contracted carriers. It focuses on large food and consumer-packaged goods companies whose products require temperature-sensitive services and who ship multiple truckloads per week. As of December 31, 2011, its customers were General Mills and Kraft.

As of December 31, 2011, the Company operated a fleet of 2,281 tractors, including 2,233 company owned tractors and 48 t! ractors supplied by independent contractors. The average age of its company owned tractor fleet at December 31, 2011 was approximately 2.6 years. As of December 31, 2011, it operated a fleet of 4,124 trailers. Most of its trailers are equipped with Thermo-King refrigeration units, air ride suspensions and anti-lock brakes. The average age of its trailer fleet as of December 31, 2011 was approximately 2.4 years.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Seth Jayson]

    Marten Transport (Nasdaq: MRTN  ) reported earnings on July 16. Here are the numbers you need to know.

    The 10-second takeaway
    For the quarter ended June 30 (Q2), Marten Transport missed estimates on revenues and missed estimates on earnings per share.

  • [By Monica Gerson]

    Marten Transport (NASDAQ: MRTN) is estimated to post its Q3 earnings at $0.23 per share on revenue of $168.28 million.

    CSX (NYSE: CSX) is expected to post its Q3 earnings at $0.43 per share on revenue of $2.95 billion.

Top Penny Companies To Own For 2015: Agility Public Warehousing Co KSC (AGLTY)

Agility Public Warehousing Company KSC is a Kuwait-based company engaged, along with its subsidiaries, in the provision of global integrated logistics solutions. The Company is organized into two business segments: the Logistic and Related services segment provides logistics offering to its clients, including freight forwarding, transportation, contract logistics, project logistics and fairs and events logistics, and the Infrastructure segment provides other services, which include industrial real estate airport and airplane ground handling and cleaning services, customs consulting, private equity and waste recycling. The Company operates under the brand name of Agility. The Company�� subsidiaries include Global Express Transport Co. WLL, PWC Transport Company WLL, Agility DGS Logistics Services KSCC and Gulf Catering Company for General, among others. Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Fiona MacDonald]

    The Kuwait SE Price Index rose for a sixth day, climbing 0.5 percent to 6,851.17 at the close. Kuwait Real Estate Co. (KRE) climbed to the highest level in a month. Agility (AGLTY) advanced 1.7 percent after winning a $190 million UN contract in Sudan�� Darfur region. The Bloomberg GCC 200 Index, which tracks the biggest 200 companies in the Gulf Cooperation Council, fell 0.1 percent.

Hot Freight Companies To Own In Right Now: Chalmers Ltd (CHR)

Chalmers Limited is an Australia-based company engaged in transport, logistic services, warehousing and container storage, repairs and sales. The Company operated in three segments: Transport, Containers and Property. Transport consists of road transport, predominantly import/export FCL containers and the interface with logistics/ warehousing/hubbing services. Containers represent the empty container park operations concerned with handling, storage, repairs, upgrades, pretrips and so on of empty containers on behalf of shipping and leasing company customers. Property represents the capital investment Chalmers has in freeholds located in Melbourne. The Company�� subsidiaries include Chalmers Industries Pty Ltd, Chalmers (Australia) Pty Ltd and Chalmers Industries (Brisbane) Pty Ltd. Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Corinne Gretler]

    Chr. Hansen A/S (CHR) slid 1.7 percent to 186 kroner after Credit Suisse Group AG cut the stock to neutral, the equivalent of hold, from outperform. The brokerage said that profit from its natural-color business remains under pressure. The world�� biggest maker of dairy enzymes cut its full-year sales forecast on July 3 because of lower prices for the red pigment carmine.

Hot Freight Companies To Own In Right Now: Universal Truckload Services Inc (UACL)

Universal Truckload Services, Inc., incorporated on December 11, 2001, is engaged in providing transportation services to shippers throughout the United States and in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The Company�� over-the-road trucking services include both flatbed and dry van operations and it provides rail-truck and steamship-truck intermodal support services. It also offers truck brokerage services, as well as full service international freight forwarding and customs house brokerage services. The Company provides truckload transportation and related services for a range of general commodities over irregular routes using dry and specialty vans and un-sided trailers, including flatbed, drop deck, and specialty. In December 2013, the Company announced that it has completed acquisition of Westport Axle Corporation.

The Company primarily operates through a contractor network of agents and owner-operators who provide the Company with approximately 3,100 tractors and approximately 3,000 trailers. At December 31, 2011, the Company had approximately 565 agents. The Company conducts its operations through its wholly owned operating subsidiaries under the brand names, such as Universal Am-Can, Ltd., Mason & Dixon Lines, Inc., Louisiana Transportation Inc., Mason Dixon Intermodal, Inc., Economy Transport, Inc., Great American Lines, Inc., Universal Logistics Solutions, Inc., Universal Logistics Solutions International, Inc. and Cavalry Transportation, LLC.

The Company provides services in three categories, such as truckload services, brokerage services and intermodal support services. The Company transports a range of general commodities, including machinery, building materials, paper, food, consumer goods, automotive parts, furniture, steel and other metals. During the year ended December 31, 2011, its truckload operations represented 60.5%, of its operating revenues.

The Company provides primarily broker freight to third-party transportation providers th! rough its agent network at times when the Company generates more freight business than it can service with its available owner-operators. The Company offers full service international freight forwarding and customs house brokerage services, as well as third-party logistic services. During 2011, its brokerage services represented 24.8%, of its operating revenues. Its intermodal support services are primarily short-to-medium distance delivery of rail and steamship containers between the railhead or port and the customer and drayage services. During 2011, its intermodal support services represented 14.7% of its operating revenues.

The Company�� agents provide the primary interaction with its shippers. They generate freight shipments and also provide terminal and dispatch services for the owner-operators and are an essential source for recruitment of new owner-operators. The agents use a company-provided software program to list available freight procured by the agent, dispatch owner-operators to haul the freight and provide all administrative information necessary for it to establish the credit arrangements for each shipper. The owner-operators are individuals who own, operate and maintain one or more tractors that they either provide drivers, or drive themselves. The Company�� owner-operators provide it with approximately 3,100 tractors. Owner-operators also may own trailers that they provide the Company in addition to their tractor and driving services. As of December 31, 2011, its owner-operators provided approximately 3,000 trailers, which represent over 50% of the trailers the Company use in its business.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Seth Jayson]

    Calling all cash flows
    When you are trying to buy the market's best stocks, it's worth checking up on your companies' free cash flow once a quarter or so, to see whether it bears any relationship to the net income in the headlines. That's what we do with this series. Today, we're checking in on Universal Truckload Services (Nasdaq: UACL  ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below.

Monday, July 28, 2014

Top 10 Tech Stocks For 2015

The hardware tech wave is surging and investors are quickly paddling out to cash in. Bolt, a Boston based hardware centric seed fund, is among them.

Bolt typically invests $50,000-$100,000 and aims to write larger cheques in the future. But the real value for many first-time or new hardware entrepreneurs is the expertise that the Bolt team brings as a seed fund. The team counts highly experienced mechanical and electrical engineers, manufacturing experts, product and industrial designers as part of their secret sauce to help bring products to market. Some of the team has worked on very commercially successful products, including Pebble watch and the Makerbot 3D printer.

Unlike software start-ups, hardware startups require high tech facilities to bring an idea to life. So beyond the usual office space for minds to meet, Bolt offers machinery and metalworking, electronics, rapid prototyping ��a playground for hardware geeks.

Top 10 Tech Stocks For 2015: Kingdee International Software Group Co Ltd (KGDEF)

Kingdee International Software Group Company Limited is an investment holding company. The principal activities of the Company and its subsidiaries are developing, manufacturing and selling of enterprise management software products and provision of software-related technical services in the People's Republic of China. The Company operates in two segments: enterprise management software business, which is engaged in the sales and implementation of enterprise management software, provision of other related services and sales of hardware related to enterprise management software arrangements, and others, which is engaged in the sales of middleware software business and provision online management services. Its subsidiaries include Beijng Kingdee System Technology Co., Ltd., Kingdee E-commerce Service (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. and others. Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By WWW.MARKETWATCH.COM]

    HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Hong Kong stocks trimmed their gains but held to positive territory Wednesday after data showing China's economic growth accelerated to 7.5% in the second quarter, ticking up from a 7.4% gain in the first quarter. The Hang Seng Index (HK:HSI) inched up 0.2%, off slightly from a 0.3% advance ahead of the data, while the Shanghai Composite Index (CN:SHCOMP) dipped 0.1%. Mainland Chinese power companies posted broad gains, with Huadian Power International Corp. (HK:1071) rallying 4.2% after the company forecast its profit for the first six months of the year would jump 55% to 65% from a year earlier. Other stocks in the sector also attracted investors' interest, with Datang International Power Generation Co. (HK:0991) (DIPGF) (CN:601991) and Huaneng Power International Inc. (HK:0902) (HUNGF) (CN:600011) gaining 2.3% and 1.6%, respectively. Menswear maker China Fordoo Holdings Ltd. (HK:2399) rose 1% on its first day of trading. However, most software and gaming companies declined, with Kingdee International Software Group (HK:0268) (KGDEF) losing 1.4%, bigger rival Kingsoft Corp. (HK:3888) (KSFTF) falling 0.9%, and Forgame Holdings L

Top 10 Tech Stocks For 2015: Convergys Corporation (CVG)

Convergys Corporation provides relationship management solutions in North America and internationally. Its Customer Management segment offers agent-assisted, self-service, and intelligent technology care solutions, including customer service, customer retention, sales, technical support, social interaction, collections management, back office, business-to-business, customer experience applied analytics, and intelligent interaction solutions for communications, financial services, technology, retail, healthcare, and government markets. This segment also provides premise-based and hosted automated self-care and technology solutions; speech recognition solutions; and license, professional, consulting and maintenance, and software support services. Convergys Corporation was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Jake L'Ecuyer]

    Convergys (NYSE: CVG) was also up, gaining 12.44 percent to $23.46 after the company announced its plans to acquire Stream Global Services for $820 million in cash. Convergys also reaffirmed its outlook for 2013.

  • [By Wallace Witkowski]

    Convergys (CVG) �shares surged 20% to $25 on light volume after the customer management firm announced it will acquire Stream Global Services Inc. for a total enterprise value of $820 million in cash. The acquisition should add about 35 cents a share to Convergys earnings excluding one-time costs, the company said.

Top 5 Defense Companies To Watch For 2015: lime energy co.(LIME)

Lime Energy Co. provides energy engineering, consulting, and implementation solutions to the commercial, industrial, utilities, governmental, and energy services markets in the United States. The company?s energy efficiency solutions enable its clients to reduce energy-related expenditures and the impact of their energy use on the environment. Its services include energy consulting, integrated energy engineering, and multi-measure project development and implementation; mechanical/electrical upgrade services; water conservation; weatherization; and renewables across a range of facilities, including office buildings, manufacturing plants, retail sites, mixed use complexes, and large government sites. The company?s energy consulting and technical services comprise utility program management and implementation, energy project development, energy engineering, consulting, and planning. Lime Energy Co. also provides energy asset development and management services comprising p roject feasibility and technology assessment; sourcing, qualifying, and structuring investment opportunities; project financing; design and construction process management; and asset management. Its customers include commercial and industrial businesses, property owners and managers, utilities, energy service companies, government entities, and educational institutions. The company was formerly known as Electric City Corp. and changed its name to Lime Energy Co. in September 2006. Lime Energy Co. was founded in 1980 and is headquartered in Huntersville, North Carolina.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Lauren Pollock]

    Lime Energy Co.(LIME) fired Chief Executive John O’Rourke while simultaneously promoting President and Chief Operating Officer Adam Procell to the top post.

  • [By CRWE]

    Lime Energy Co. (NASDAQ:LIME) reported their addition to NSTAR�� Municipal Program, which incentivizes municipalities to implement energy efficiency measures. The pre-selection of energy efficiency contractors is intended to streamline the procurement process for the municipalities that NSTAR currently serves.

Top 10 Tech Stocks For 2015: Synchronoss Technologies Inc.(SNCR)

Synchronoss Technologies, Inc. provides on-demand transaction management solutions primarily in North America. It offers solutions to manage transactions, including device and service procurement, provisioning, activation, intelligent connectivity management, and content synchronization for communications service providers, cable operators/multi-services operators, original equipment manufacturers with embedded connectivity, and e-Tailers/retailers. The company provides ConvergenceNow, ConvergenceNow Plus+, and InterconnectNow platforms that provide on-demand order processing, transaction management, service provisioning, device activation, intelligent connectivity, and content transfer and synchronization through e-commerce, telesales, enterprise, indirect, and other retail outlet channels. It also offers PerformancePartner Portal, a graphical user interface that allows the entry of transaction data into the gateway; Gateway Manager, which offers the capability to fulfill multiple types of transactions; WorkFlow Manager that provides interaction with third-party relationships, as well as enables customers to have a single transaction view, including data from third-party systems; and Visibility Manager, which offers a centralized reporting platform for intelligent analytics around the workflow, transaction management information, historical trending, and mobile reporting for users to receive critical transaction data on mobile devices. In addition, the company provides Content Synchronization Portal that facilitates content migration across devices from different platforms; Device Client, which offers connectivity for activation, connection management, and content migration and synchronization for feature phones, smartphones, computers, and tablets. It sells its products and services through direct sales force and strategic partners. Synchronoss Technologies, Inc. was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Bridgewater, New Jersey.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Lee Jackson]

    Synchronoss Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: SNCR) may not only beat earnings, but CNBC�� Jim Cramer is touting it as a breakout stock that may be ready to explode for investors. The company provides software-based activation and personal cloud solutions for connected devices. The consensus price target for the stock is $38.

  • [By Lee Jackson]

    Synchronoss Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: SNCR) was added to the Credit Suisse U.S. focus list on Monday. The company trounced earnings expectations and even topped its own sales estimates for the quarter. Cloud services grew 30% from a year ago and now comprise nearly a third of total revenue. Deutsche Bank has a $40 price target, and the consensus number is at $38.

  • [By Roberto Pedone]

    Synchronoss Technologies (SNCR) is a provider of on-demand transaction management solutions. This stock closed up 1% at $35.38 in Monday's trading session.

    Monday's Volume: 508,000

    Three-Month Average Volume: 284,678

    Volume % Change: 80%

    From a technical perspective, SNCR trended up modestly higher here right above some near-term support at $34.27 with above-average volume. This stock has been uptrending strong for the last month and change, with shares moving higher from its low of $26.60 to its recent high of $36.49. During that move, shares of SNCR have been consistently making higher lows and higher highs, which is bullish technical price action. That move has now pushed shares of SNCR within range of triggering a near-term breakout trade. That trade will hit if SNCR manages to take out some near-term overhead resistance levels at $36 to its 52-week high at $36.49 with high volume.

    Traders should now look for long-biased trades in SNCR as long as it's trending above some support at $34 and then once it sustains a move or close above those breakout levels with volume that this near or above 284,678 shares. If that breakout hits soon, then SNCR will set up to enter new 52-week-high territory, which is bullish technical price action. Some possible upside targets off that breakout are $40 to $43.

Top 10 Tech Stocks For 2015: Extreme Networks Inc.(EXTR)

Extreme Networks, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, develops and markets network infrastructure equipment and services to businesses, hospitals, schools, hotels, telecommunications companies, and government agencies. It offers Summit product family of stackable Ethernet switching systems that provide 10 megabit to 40 gigabit connection speeds, various physical presentations, and options to deliver power-over-Ethernet or unpowered standard Ethernet ports; and Black Diamond family of modular Ethernet switching systems, which deliver modular or chassis-based Ethernet connectivity solutions for enterprises, data centers, and service providers. The company also offers SummitWM family of wireless network controllers and associated Altitude access points to enable the deployment of nomadic and mobile converged network applications; and RidgeLine management software system that includes features tailored to data center, campus, and service provider management. It has strategic relationships with Motorola Inc., Netgear, Inc., Ericsson Enterprise AB, and Nokia Siemens Networks. The company sells its products through distributors, resellers, and field sales organizations. It operates in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Central America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South America, and the Asia Pacific. Extreme Networks, Inc. was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Jake L'Ecuyer]

    Extreme Networks (NASDAQ: EXTR) shares tumbled 15.38 percent to $5.96 after the company reported downbeat Q2 results and issued a weak Q3 profit forecast.

  • [By Rich Bieglmeier]

    We like to take it one step further than just buying, iStock specifically targets insiders with a history of making the correct call. Extreme Networks Inc. (EXTR) Director, Maury Austin is taking a second bite of the apple.

  • [By Jake L'Ecuyer]

    Extreme Networks (NASDAQ: EXTR) shares tumbled 17.33 percent to $5.82 after the company reported downbeat Q2 results and issued a weak Q3 profit forecast.

Top 10 Tech Stocks For 2015: Marketo Inc (MKTO)

Marketo, Inc. (Marketo), incorporated on December 17, 2009, provides cloud-based marketing software platform that enables organizations to engage in modern relationship marketing. The Company�� software platform is designed to enable the execution, management and analytical measurement of marketing activities, helping organizations to acquire new customers. The Company�� platform includes marketing automation, social marketing, sales insight and revenue analytics. Its customer base includes 2,000 customers across a range of industries, including business services, consumer, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, media, technology and telecommunications. The Company provides its solutions on a subscription basis. Effective December 19, 2013, Marketo Inc acquired Insightera Ltd.

The Company designs, builds and markets a suite of integrated applications to address the needs of modern marketing professionals. The Company�� customers use these applications individually and in combination to streamline and automate marketing processes; develop, retain and extend customer relationships, and measure the positive impact on revenue of marketing programs. Its platform and suite of applications is hosted and delivered over the Web using a cloud-based, or software as a service (SaaS) model, and is built using a multi-tenant architecture. The Company markets and sells its enterprise applications as: Marketo lead management, which includes the core Marketo platform, plus all of the marketing automation capabilities available on the platform; Marketo social marketing, which enables social media campaigns, such as referrals, sweepstakes, and other customer engagement campaigns, and also includes features to add social marketing extensions to traditional marketing campaigns; Marketo sales insight, which provides insights to salespeople about their customers and prospects, and Marketo revenue cycle analytics, which is a suite of analytic tools, analyzers, and ad hoc reporting capabilities taki! ng advantage of its time-series analytics engine.

The Company has built a suite of applications that run on its platform. The applications include marketing automation, social marketing, sales insight and revenue analytics. Marketing automation provides a set of capabilities for marketers to create, automate, and track personalized multi-channel marketing campaigns and relationship-marketing workflows. It includes functionality for marketers to finely segment their prospect and customer database based on collected demographic and behavioral data; generate custom Web pages without programming; send batch and individual personalized marketing messages over email, short message service (SMS) text, and other channels; streamline the entire process of running online (e.g., webinar) and offline (e.g., trade show) marketing events, and to execute multi-step lead nurturing and relationship-marketing campaigns that can run over days, weeks, or months.

Social marketing enables marketers to run social media marketing campaigns, as well as to an increase traditional marketing campaigns with a social marketing aspect in order to amplify marketing messages across social networks. Its solution lets marketers add intelligent social sharing buttons to existing Web content and videos; publish new Facebook pages with the touch of a button; build social engagement applications, such as polls, sweepstakes, and referral offers to engage their audience and promote social cross-posting, and increase existing customer and prospect information with social profiles and sharing behavior.

Sold on a per-seat basis, the Company offers sales insight application to customers utilizing Microsoft dynamics customer relationship management (CRM) or salesforce.com as their CRM system. Revenue Analytics provides a range of ways to help companies understand the correlation between marketing programs and revenue outcomes, and includes: a library of operational reports detailing e-mail and landing page per! formance,! Web activity, and lead performance; intuitive analyzers that show the influence of marketing on individual customer outcomes; analytics that compute and illustrate the impact, effectiveness and return on investment of marketing programs individually and in aggregate, and an ad-hoc report builder for completely customized reports and dashboards.

The Company competes with Act-On, Eloqua, Aprimo, HubSpot, SAS Institute, Unica, ExactTarget, Responsys, Silverpop, Oracle Corporation and SAP AG.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By gurujx]

    Marketo Inc (MKTO): SVP & CFO Frederick Ball Sold 50,000 Shares

    SVP & CFO of Marketo Inc (MKTO) Frederick Ball sold 50,000 shares on 09/18/2013 at an average price of $33.99.

  • [By Lee Jackson]

    The Lazard trading desk said that active traders may want to look at software stocks that still had unusually high short interest. Those included Concur Technologies (NASDAQ: CNQR), Tangoe Inc. (NASDAQ: TNGO), Jive Software (NASDAQ: JIVE), Marketo Inc. (NASDAQ: MKTO), VeriSign Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN) and VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW). Stocks with high short interest can explode to the upside if the company gets back on track and short sellers are forced to cover.

Top 10 Tech Stocks For 2015: Pharmacyclics Inc (PCYC)

Pharmacyclics, Inc., incorporated on April 19, 1991, is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing small-molecule drugs for the treatment of cancer and immune mediated diseases. The Company's clinical development and product candidates are small-molecule enzyme inhibitors designed to target biochemical pathways involved in human diseases. As of June 30, 2011, it had three drug candidates under clinical development and a number of preclinical lead molecules. This includes an inhibitor of Bruton�� tyrosine kinase (Btk) (PCI-32765) in Phase II studies in hematologic malignancies; a Btk inhibitor lead optimization program targeting autoimmune indications, an inhibitor of Factor VIIa (PCI-27483) in a Phase II clinical trial in pancreatic cancer, and a histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor (PCI-24781) in Phase I and II clinical trials in solid tumors and hematological malignancies as of June 30, 2012.

As of June 30, 2012, the Company developed ibrutinib, which has demonstrated clinical activity and tolerability in Phase I and Phase II clinical trials in a variety of B-cell malignancies, including chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and a number of non-Hodgkin�� lymphoma (NHL) subtypes. CLL, mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), follicular lymphoma (FL), diffuse B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and multiple myeloma (MM) are specific indications of its current or planned Phase Ib/II and Phase III development program. had development programs for B-cell malignancies and autoimmune diseases. For malignant indications it has developed PCI-32765, which has demonstrated clinical activity and tolerability in Phase I and Phase II clinical trials in a range of B-cell malignancies, including chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and a number of non-Hodgkin�� lymphoma (NHL) subtypes. CLL, mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), follicular lymphoma (FL), diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and multiple myeloma (MM) are specific indications of its Phase II development. It has developed an assay! to measure occupancy of Btk in PBMCs using a cell-permeable fluorescently-labeled derivative of PCI-32765.

Factor VII is an enzyme that becomes activated (FVIIa) by binding to the cell surface protein tissue factor (TF), a protein found in the body that helps to trigger the process of blood clotting in response to injury. TF is over expressed in many cancers including gastric, breast, colon, lung, prostate, ovarian and pancreatic cancers. In these tumors, the FVIIa/TF complex induces intracellular signaling pathways by activating protease activated receptor 2 (PAR-2), another cell-surface protein. This in turn increases the expression of interleukin-8 (IL-8), a protein produced by white blood cells and other immune cells in response to pathogenic stimulation, and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), a signal protein produced by cells that stimulate the growth of blood vessels. Both proteins play an important role in tumor growth and metastases as well as angiogenesis (growth of new blood vessels). FVIIa/TF complex also initiates the coagulation (a process by which blood forms clots) processes implicated in the high incidence of thromboembolic (the process by which the blood clots within a blood vessel) complications seen in patients with TF-expressing cancers. Thromboembolic events are a cause of death in patients with cancer and anticoagulant treatment has been shown to improve survival in a variety of cancers (Klerk et al. JCO. 2005).

PCI-27483 Factor VIIa Inhibitor

The Company�� Factor VIIa inhibitor PCI-27483 is a first-in-human small molecule inhibitor that selectively targets FVIIa. As an inhibitor of FVIIa, PCI-27483 has two potential mechanisms of action: inhibition of intracellular signaling involved in tumor growth and metastases and inhibition of early coagulation processes associated with thromboembolism.

Factor VIIa PCI-27483 Clinical Development Update

A multicenter Phase I/II of PCI-27483 in patients with locally a! dvanced o! r metastatic pancreatic cancer that are either receiving or are planned to receive gemcitabine therapy has completed enrollment. The Phase II portion of the study randomized patients to receive either gemcitabine alone or gemcitabine plus PCI-27483 (1.2 mg/kg twice daily). The objectives are to assess the safety of FVIIa Inhibitor PCI-27483 at pharmacologically active dose levels, to assess potential inhibition of tumor progression and to obtain initial information of the effects on the incidence of thromboembolic events. Due to a paradigm shift away from the use of gemcitabine alone for the treatment of pancreatic cancer, enrolling patients in this randomized study has been challenging. PCYC is evaluating other alternatives for development of this agent.

A multicenter Phase I/II of PCI-27483 in patients with locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer that are either receiving or are planned to receive gemcitabine therapy has completed enrollment. The Phase II portion of the study randomized patients to receive either gemcitabine alone or gemcitabine plus PCI-27483 (1.2 mg/kg twice daily). PCI-27483 is covered by United States patents and patent applications and counterpart patents and patent applications in fourteen ex-United States territories, including Europe, Canada, Mexico, Japan, China, India, South Korea, Australia and Brazil.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Dan Caplinger]

    Yet J&J isn't satisfied with what it already has. Last week, the company joined with Pharmacyclics (NASDAQ: PCYC  ) to seek approval for their lymphoma drug ibrutinib. J&J will get a 50% share of any profit from the venture, and J&J cited a Piper Jaffray estimate that just one of its indications could produce sales of more than $4 billion.

  • [By Sean Williams]

    Biotechnology juggernaut Pharmacyclics (NASDAQ: PCYC  ) -- a company that has returned close to 19,000% since its recession lows -- ignited investor optimism when it and licensing partner Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ  ) filed a new drug application for ibrutinib. This is truly exciting news, because it marks the first breakthrough therapy drug that's filed for an NDA, and will act the test subject to the rest of the breakthrough therapy designated drugs. Ibrutinib delivered exceptional results in chronic lymphocytic leukemia and mantle cell lymphoma in terms of overall response rate, which should probably net it an approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

Top 10 Tech Stocks For 2015: Provectus Pharmaceuticals Inc (PVCT)

Provectus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., incorporated on May 1, 1978, is a development-stage pharmaceutical company that is primarily engaged in developing ethical pharmaceuticals for oncology and dermatology indications. The Company develops and focuses to license or market and sells its two prescription drug candidates, PV-10 and PH-10. The Company has transferred all its intellectual property related to over the counter (OTC) products and non-core technologies to its subsidiaries and designated, such subsidiaries as non-core to its primary business of developing its oncology and dermatology prescription drug candidates. The Company focuses on developing its prescription drug candidates PV-10 and PH-10. The Company is developing PV-10 for treatment of several life threatening cancers, including metastatic melanoma, liver cancer, and breast cancer. The Company is developing PH-10 to provide minimally invasive treatment of chronic severe skin afflictions such as psoriasis and atopic dermatitis, a type of eczema. All of the Company's prescription drug candidates are in either the pre-clinical or clinical trial stage.

PV-10

As of December 31, 2011, the Company is developing PV-10, a sterile injectible form of rose bengal disodium (Rose Bengal), for direct injection into tumors. Its PV-10 is retained in diseased or damaged tissue but dissipates from healthy tissue. The Company had conducted Phase I and Phase IIstudies of PV-10 for the treatment of metastatic melanoma, and Phase I studies of PV-10 for the treatment of liver and breast cancers.

PH-10

The Company�� prescription drug candidate PH-10 is an aqueous hydrogel formulation of Rose Bengal for topical administration to the skin. The Company is developing PH-10 for the treatment of cutaneous skin disorders, specifically psoriasis and atopic dermatitis. In August 2011, the Company completed follow-up of all Phase IIc patients.

Over-the-Counter Pharmaceuticals

The Company had desi! gnated its subsidiary that holds its OTC products, GloveAid and Pure-ific, Pure-Stick, Pure N Clear as non-core. The Company�� GloveAid is a hand cream with both antiperspirant and antibacterial properties, for the comfort of users��hands during and after the wearing of disposable gloves. Its Pure-ific line of products includes two quick-drying sprays, Pure-ific and Pure-ific Kids, that immediately kill up to 99.9% of germs on skin and prevent regrowth for six hours. Pure-ific products prevent the spread of germs and thus complement its other OTC products designed to treat irritated skin or skin conditions, such as acne, eczema, dandruff and fungal infections. Its Pure-ific sprays have been designed with convenience in mind and are targeted towards mothers, travelers, and anyone concerned about the spread of sickness-causing germs.

The Company�� acne products Pure-Stick and Pure N Clear work by decreasing the production of fats, oils and sweat that create an environment conducive to unchecked growth of bacteria. Secondly, the products also act to reduce the number bacteria already present. The Pure-Stick and Pure N Clear are applied topically to affected areas there are no safety concerns with healthy skin.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Jake L'Ecuyer]

    Provectus Biopharmaceuticals (NYSE: PVCT) was also down, falling 3.02 percent to $3.01, letting out some air after the company's opening on the NYSE Friday.

  • [By Luke Jacobi]

    Provectus Biopharmaceuticals (NYSE: PVCT) was also down, falling 3.38 percent to $3.01, letting out some air after the company's opening on the NYSE Friday.

Top 10 Tech Stocks For 2015: Splunk Inc (SPLK)

Splunk Inc. (Splunk) provides a software platform. Splunk�� software collects and indexes data regardless of format or source, and enables users to search, correlate, analyze, monitor and report on this data, all in real time. Its software is designed to help users in various roles, including information technology (IT) and business professionals, analyze machine data and realize real-time visibility into and about their organization's operations. The core of its software is a machine data engine, comprised of collection, indexing, search and data management capabilities. Its software can collect and index terabytes of information daily, irrespective of format or source. As of January 31, 2012, the Company had approximately 3,700 customers.

The Company�� software enables users to identify problems, get answers and gain new business insights and intelligence from machine data across their globally distributed enterprise all through one platform. Its software contains features and functionality, such as Universally collect, index, store and archive any machine data, from any source, search and investigate, user-friendly interface, knowledge store, monitor and alert, report and analyze, custom dashboards and views, platform extensibility, role-based access and controls.

The Company competes with BMC Software, Inc., CA, Compuware, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft Corporation, Quest Software, Adobe Systems, Google, Webtrends, EMC, Oracle and SAP.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Matt Jarzemsky]

    Splunk Inc.(SPLK), one of 2012�� hottest initial public offerings, has another stock sale on deck.

    The deal by the data-analysis software maker follows well-received offerings by software makers Workday Inc.(WDAY) and Cvent Inc.(CVT) last week, suggesting investor interest in cloud computing and ��ig data��analysis remain high. Those deals bucked the broader market�� sluggish tone, with indexes little changed out of the gate this year and many strategists predicting muted returns after 2013�� rally.

Top 10 Tech Stocks For 2015: Shanda Games Ltd (GAME)

Shanda Games Limited (Shanda Games), incorporated on June 12, 2008, is engaged in the development and operation of online games and related businesses in the People�� Republic of China. Some of its online games are also Web games, which the Company categorizes as either massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) or advanced casual games, rather than as a separate category of online games. As of February 29, 2012, Shanda Games operated 35 online games. Its game player base, which consisted of 20.4 million average monthly active users and 4.5 million average monthly paying users for the three-month period ended December 31, 2011. In April 2011, the Company acquired a 51.85% interest in a game operating company, which provides services in East Asia.

As of December 31, 2011, the Company owned 149 software copyrights. As of December 31, 2011, it owned or licensed 53 trademarks. As of December 31, 2011, it owned or licensed 329 registered domain names, including its official Website and domain names registered in connection with each of the games the Company offers. As of December 31, 2011, it had 17 patent applications pending with the State Intellectual Property Office of China. The Company operates MMORPGs, advanced casual games and Web games in China. Its MMORPGs are action adventure-based and draw upon themes, such as martial arts adventure, fantasy, strategy and historical events. The Company develops and sources an array of game content through multiple channels, including in-house development, licensing, investment and acquisition, and joint operation. Through these channels, it has built a diversified game portfolio and a game pipeline.

The Company licenses games from international and domestic developers. As of February 29, 2012, 13 of its 35 online games were licensed from third-party developers, including Mir II. It invests in independent game development and operating studios identified by 18 Capital. The Company acquire intellectual property rights t! o online games; equity rights in online game development and operating studios, or an option to acquire equity interests in online game development and operating studios in the future.

The Company operates its business in People's Republic of China, through its wholly owned subsidiaries, which consist of Shengqu Information Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (Shengqu), Shengji Information Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (Shengji), Lansha Information Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (Lansha) and Kuyin Software (Shanghai) Co., Ltd (Kuyin); its variable interest entities and their subsidiaries (VIEs), which consist of Shanghai Hongli Digital Technology Co., Ltd. (Shanghai Hongli) and Shanghai Shulong Technology Development Co., Ltd. (Shanghai Shulong) and their wholly owned subsidiaries, Shanghai Shulong Computer Technology Co., Ltd. (Shulong Computer), Nanjing Shulong Computer Technology Co., Ltd. (Nanjing Shulong), Chengdu Youji Technology Co., Ltd. (Chengdu Youji), Tianjin Youji Technology Co., Ltd. (Tianjin Youji), Chengdu Aurora Technology Development Co., Ltd. (Chengdu Aurora), and Chengdu Simo Technology Co., Ltd. (Chengdu Simo).

The Company competes with Tencent Holdings Limited, NetEase.com, Changyou.com Limited, Perfect World Co., Ltd., Giant Interactive, Kingsoft Corporation Limited, KongZhong Corporation, NetDragon Websoft Inc., Nineyou International Limited, The9 Limited, Activision Blizzard, Inc., Electronic Arts Inc., Zynga Inc., NCSoft Corporation, and Nexon Corporation.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Kevin Chen]

    On the heels of a resignation, Shanda Games� (NASDAQ: GAME  ) has appointed a new member to its board of directors.

    The company announced Wednesday that due to personal reasons, Guoxing Jiang had resigned from his spot on the board and also the Audit Committee. Replacing him will be Yong Gui. In the company's press release, Chairman Tianqiao Chen said of the new choice:

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Top 10 Forestry Companies To Invest In 2015

NCR Corporation (NCR) was the Fund's largest detrac tor during the fourth quarter, falling over 14 percent and detracting 25 basis points of return . The nancial technology company delivered a slightly weaker than expected quarter t hat surprised us as well as the Street. They reafrmed guidance which implies a strong fourth qu arter and suggested that cash ows will continue to be cautiously managed. Since we like th e business and valuation, as well as the improved balance sheet, we are inclined to stay the course.

From John Keeley (Trades, Portfolio)'s Keeley All Cap Value Fund fourth quarter 2013 commentary.


Also check out: John Keeley Undervalued Stocks John Keeley Top Growth Companies John Keeley High Yield stocks, and Stocks that John Keeley keeps buying

Currently 4.00/512345

Rating: 4.0/5 (1 vote)

Top 10 Forestry Companies To Invest In 2015: Qualys Inc (QLYS)

Qualys, Inc. (Qualys), incorporated on December 30, 1999, is a provider of clouds security and compliance solutions that enable organizations to identify security risks to their information technology (IT) infrastructures, help protect their IT systems and applications from cyber attacks and achieve compliance with internal policies and external regulations. The Company designed its QualysGuard Cloud Platform to transform the way organizations secure and protect their IT infrastructures and applications. The Company's cloud platform offers an integrated suite of solutions that automates the lifecycle of asset discovery, security assessments, and compliance management for an organization's IT infrastructure and assets, whether they reside inside the organization, on their network perimeter or in the cloud.

The Company provides its solutions through a software-as-a-service model, primarily with renewable annual subscriptions. These subscriptions require customers to pay a fee in order to access the Company's cloud solutions. The Company's QualysGuard Cloud Platform consists of a suite of IT security and compliance solutions that leverage the Company's shared and extensible core services and its scalable multi-tenant cloud infrastructure. The Company's suite of solutions provides security intelligence by automating the life cycle of IT asset discovery, security assessment and compliance management. The Company's cloud platform's infrastructure includes integrated services that deliver a automated and scalable scanning infrastructure capable of scanning IT systems and Web applications, inside and outside corporate firewalls. The Company also provides open application program interfaces (APIs), and other developer tools that allow third parties to embed its technology into their solutions and build applications on its cloud platform.

The Company's suite of solutions, which the Company refers to as the QualysGuard Cloud Suite, includes Vulnerability Management, Web Application Sca! nning, Malware Detection Service, Policy Compliance, PCI Compliance and Qualys SECURE Seal. The Company's customers can subscribe to one or more of the Company's security and compliance solutions based on their initial needs and expand their subscriptions over time to new areas within their organization or to additional QualysGuard solutions. The Company offers two editions of its QualysGuard Cloud Suite, the Enterprise edition for large and medium-sized enterprises and the Express edition for small and medium-sized businesses.

QualysGuard Vulnerability Management (QualysGuard VM), is a solution that automates network auditing and vulnerability management across an organization, including network discovery and mapping, asset management, vulnerability reporting, and remediation tracking. QualysGuard Policy Compliance (QualysGuard PC) allows customers to analyze and collect configuration and access control information from their networked devices and Web applications and automatically maps this information to internal policies and external regulations in order to document compliance.

QualysGuard PCI Compliance (QualysGuard PCI) provides organizations that store cardholder data a automated solution to verify and document compliance with PCI DSS. QualysGuard Web Application Scanning (QualysGuard WAS) uses the scalability of its cloud platform to allow customers to discover, catalog and scan a large number of Web applications. QualysGuard Malware Detection Service (QualysGuard MDS) provides organizations with the ability to scan identify and remove malware infections from their Websites. QualysGuard Web Application Firewall (QualysGuard WAF) delivers enterprise-grade Web application security without associated with appliance-based Web application firewall solutions. QualysGuard SECURE Seal helps organizations demonstrate to their online customers that they maintain a proactive security program.

Core Services include asset tagging and management, reporting and dashboards! , questio! nnaires and collaboration, remediation and workflow, big data correlation and analytics engine, and alerts and notifications. The Company�� infrastructure layer, which it refer to as its Infrastructure, includes the data, data processing capabilities, software and hardware infrastructure and infrastructure management capabilities that provide the foundation for its cloud platform and allow the Company to automatically scale its Infrastructure and Core Services to scan millions of Internet protocols (IPs).

The Company competes with Hewlett-Packard Company, Imperva, Inc., International Business Machines Corporation, McAfee, Inc., Symantec Corporation, Barracuda Networks, Inc., BeyondTrust Software, Inc., Lumension Security, Inc., nCircle Network Security, Inc., NetIQ Corporation, Rapid7 LLC, Tenable Network Security, Inc. and Trustwave Holdings, Inc.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Jake L'Ecuyer]

    Equities Trading UP
    Qualys (NASDAQ: QLYS) shares shot up 8.24 percent to $20.68 after the company reported upbeat quarterly results.

    Shares of Office Depot (NYSE: ODP) got a boost, shooting up 15.95 percent to $4.84 after the company reported upbeat quarterly earnings and announced its plans to close at least 400 stores in the US.

  • [By Jake L'Ecuyer]

    Equities Trading UP
    Qualys (NASDAQ: QLYS) shares shot up 10.23 percent to $21.07 after the company reported upbeat quarterly results.

    Shares of Office Depot (NYSE: ODP) got a boost, shooting up 15.95 percent to $4.84 after the company reported upbeat quarterly earnings and announced its plans to close at least 400 stores in the US.

Top 10 Forestry Companies To Invest In 2015: Walter Investment Management Corp (WAC)

Walter Investment Management Corp., together with its subsidiaries, is a fee-based business services provider to the residential mortgage industry. The Company is a specialty servicer providing residential loan servicing that focuses on credit-sensitive residential mortgage assets located in the United States. It is also a mortgage portfolio owner and operates an insurance agency serving residential loan customers. The Company operates in four segments: Servicing, Asset Receivables Management (ARM), Insurance, and Loans and Residuals. On July 1, 2011, the Company acquired GTCS Holdings LLC. In November 2012, the Company acquired Reverse Mortgage Solutions, Inc. In January 2013, it acquired originations and capital markets platform of Residential Capital, LLC. In April 2013, the Company announced that its wholly owned subsidiary Reverse Mortgage Solutions, Inc. (RMS) acquired a (Wells Fargo).

Servicing

The Company�� Servicing business segment consists of operations that perform servicing for third-party investors in residential mortgages, manufactured housing and consumer installment loans and contracts, as well as for the Loans and Residuals segment and for the Non-Residual Trusts. During the year ended December 31, 2011, the Company added 259,000 account.

ARM

The Company�� ARM business performs collections of delinquent balances on loans.

Insurance

The Company�� Insurance segment consists of its agency business and its reinsurance businesses. The Company�� Insurance business segment provides voluntary and lender-placed hazard insurance for residential loans, as well as other ancillary products.

Loans and Residuals

The Company's Loans and Residuals business segment consists of the assets and liabilities of the Residual Trusts. It also includes its unencumbered residential loan portfolio and real estate owned.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Sean Williams]

    What: Shares of Walter Investment Management (NYSE: WAC  ) , a residential mortgage services provider, jumped as much as 12% after the Federal Housing Finance Agency extended the HARP program for two additional years.

Best Diversified Bank Stocks To Own For 2015: Accor SA (AC)

Accor SA is a France-based hotel operator. The Hotels division manages more than 531,000 bedrooms in more than 4,200 hotels across 90 countries. Accor's portfolio consists of such hotel brands as Sofitel, Pullman, Novotel, Mercure, Suite Novotel, Adagio, ibis Styles, all seasons, Etap Hotel, Formule 1, hotelF1, Studio 6 and Motel 6, and its related activities, Thalassa sea & spa and Lenotre that provide an offer ranging from luxury to budget class. It operates through a number of subsidiaries, including SH Danton Michelet, Ste De Constructiondes Holets Suites, SIET, The Newgen Hotels, Chammans, Profid, SPFH, IBL, Soluxury HMC and SNC SH 61 QG; LA THERMALE DE FRANCE, PIH and HOTEXCO, among others. On July 30, 2012, it divested its stake in Ascendas Australia Hospitality Fund and Beijing Sanyuan Novotel and Ibis. In February 2013, it sold the Sofitel Paris Le Faubourg. In August 2013, it opened a new hotel in Thailand. In September 2013, it opened new resort in Dubai. Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Namitha Jagadeesh]

    Accor SA (AC) declined 4.2 percent to 25.62 euros after Credit Suisse Group AG downgraded Europe�� largest hotel operator to underperform, the equivalent of sell, from outperform, citing the increasing risk of disappointing first-quarter earnings.

Top 10 Forestry Companies To Invest In 2015: Mad Catz Interactive Inc(MCZ)

Mad Catz Interactive, Inc. designs, manufactures, markets, sells, and distributes accessories for videogame platforms and personal computers (PC), as well as for iPod and other audio devices. Its products include videogame, PC, and audio accessories, such as control pads, video cables, steering wheels, joysticks, memory cards, light guns, flight sticks, dance pads, microphones, car adapters, carry cases, mice, keyboards, and headsets. It markets its products primarily under the Mad Catz, Saitek, Cyborg, Eclipse, Joytech, GameShark, Tritton, and AirDrives brands. The company also develops flight simulation software; operates flight simulation centers under its Saitek brand; operates a videogame content Website under its GameShark brand; publishes games under its Mad Catz brand; and distributes games and videogame products for third parties. It distributes its products through retailers in the United States, Europe, and Canada, as well as in Australia, Japan, Korea, New Zeal and, and Singapore. The company was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in San Diego, California

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Bryan Murphy]

    If the name Mad Catz Interactive, Inc. (NYSEMKT:MCZ) rings a bell, it might be because yours truly penned some bullish thoughts on the video-gaming hardware (joysticks, control pads, headsets, etc.) back on August 20th. Neither MCZ nor my write-up were received as anything partially special at the time - it was just another stock dissected by just another guy, and you may or may not have given it a second thought. The 37% rally in the meantime, however, may garner a little more attention.

Top 10 Forestry Companies To Invest In 2015: NVIDIA Corporation(NVDA)

NVIDIA Corporation provides visual computing, high performance computing, and mobile computing solutions that generate interactive graphics on various devices ranging from tablets and smart phones to notebooks and workstations. It operates in three segments: Graphic Processing Unit (GPU), Professional Solutions Business (PSB), and Consumer Products Business (CPB). The GPU segment offers GeForce discrete and chipset products, which support desktop and notebook personal computers plus memory products. The PSB segment provides its Quadro professional workstation products and other professional graphics products, including its NVIDIA Tesla high-performance computing products used in the manufacturing, entertainment, medical, science, and aerospace industries. The CPB segment offers Tegra mobile products, which support tablets, smartphones, personal media players, Internet television, automotive navigation, and other similar devices. This segment also licenses video game consol es and other digital consumer electronics devices. The company sells its products to original equipment manufacturers, original design manufacturers, add-in-card manufacturers, consumer electronics companies, and system builders worldwide that utilize its processors as a core component of their entertainment, business, and professional solutions. NVIDIA Corporation was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Evan Niu, CFA]

    At NVIDIA's (NASDAQ: NVDA  ) investor day yesterday, CEO Jen-Hsun Huang made a bittersweet confession. He predicted that the company's important Tegra mobile processor business wouldn't put up any growth this year. The company was faced with a tough choice, since it knew it needed a processor with integrated LTE to properly compete with Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM  ) �in smartphones.

  • [By Rustic Nomad]

    Broadcom (BRCM) and NVIDIA (NVDA) are two chipmakers making solid moves. The two companies are seeing strong growth in their businesses. As a result, investors should definitely take a closer look at them.

  • [By Nate Pile]

    Steve Halpern: So, for your specific recommendations in the semiconductor sector, you've initially taken positions in TriQuint Semiconductor (TQNT), Cirrus Logic (CRUS), and NVIDIA (NVDA). Could you tell us about those positions and the strategy that you're using with them?

  • [By Eric Bleeker, CFA, Lyons George, and Alison Southwick]

    Inside China, a crash below the $50 barrier has unleashed a massive tablet boom. How are companies doing this? For one, local processor companies have created "good enough" designs that sell for a fraction of the price of high-end designs from�NVIDIA� (NASDAQ: NVDA  ) and�Qualcomm� (NASDAQ: QCOM  ) . On its budget-priced Slate 7, HP used a design from Chinese chip designer Rockchip. When HP tried to sell its TouchPad tablet for prices starting at $500 in 2011, it used a Qualcomm design. Perversely, low-cost tablets are also cutting costs by salvaging memory from PCs.�

Top 10 Forestry Companies To Invest In 2015: Reliance Industries Ltd (RELIANCE)

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is a conglomerate with business in the energy and materials value chain. The Company operates in three segments: petrochemicals, refining and oil & gas. The petrochemicals segment includes production and marketing operations of petrochemical products which include, polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride, poly butadiene rubber, polyester yarn, polyester fibre, purified terephthalic acid, paraxylene, ethylene glycol, olefins, aromatics, linear alkyl benzene, butadiene, acrylonitrile, caustic soda and polyethylene terephthalate. The refining segment includes production and marketing operations of the petroleum products. The oil and gas segment includes exploration, development and production of crude oil and natural gas. Its others segment includes textile, retail business, special economic zone (SEZ) development and telecom / broadband business. Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By MONEYMORNING.COM]

    Vanguard favors India with investments in Infosys Ltd. (NSE: INFY), Reliance Industries Ltd. (NSE: RELIANCE), and Housing Development Finance Corp. Ltd. (NSE: HDFC) ranking among its top 20.

Top 10 Forestry Companies To Invest In 2015: Skullcandy Inc (SKUL)

Skullcandy, Inc., incorporated on May 20, 2005, is a designer, marketer and distributor of performance audio and gaming headphones and other accessory related products under the Skullcandy, Astro Gaming and 2XL by Skullcandy brands. The Company's products are sold and distributed through a variety of channels in the United States and approximately 80 countries worldwide. The Company is engaged in the distribution of headphones in specialty retailers focused on action sports and the youth lifestyle, such as Zumiez, Tilly�� and hundreds of independent snow, skate and surf retailers. It distributes through consumer electronics, mass, sporting goods and mobile phone retailers, such as Best Buy, Target, Dick�� Sporting Goods and AT&T Wireless. Skullcandy products are also sold through its Website.

The Company�� product line include dB Collecti; Mobility Collectio, which targets mobile channel with product features designed to work on cell phones and smartphones, such as the Apple iPhone, and 2XL, which represents traditional sports, motor sports and hip-hop and rock and roll music. The Company sponsors athletes, disc jockeys (DJs), musicians, artists and events within all areas of action sports and the indie and hip-hop music genres. Through its Websites, skullcandy.com, skullcandy.tv, ca.skullcandy.com, eu.skullcandy.com, uk.skullcandy.com, 2xl.com, astrogaming.com, astrogaming.co.uk and astrogaming.fr listen to music by its sponsored artists, read blog updates on events, athletes, DJs, musicians and artists, and shop for Skullcandy and Astro Gaming products.

The Company competes with Sony, JVC, Bose, Beats by Dr. Dre, Nixon, adidas, Incase, Urbanears, Monster Cable Products, Sol Republic, iFrogz,Nike and Sennheiser.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Eric Volkman]

    Skullcandy (NASDAQ: SKUL  ) is undergoing quite a bit of adjustment in its corporate offices. Its CFO, Kyle Wescoat, has resigned to "pursue other opportunities" in his home region of Southern California. The company said it has launched a search for a successor; Wescoat will stay on through September or so while Skullcandy hunts for a replacement.

Top 10 Forestry Companies To Invest In 2015: CVR Partners LP(UAN)

CVR Partners, LP engages in the production of nitrogen fertilizers including ammonia and urea ammonium nitrate. The company was incorporated in 2007 and is based in Sugar Land, Texas. CVR Partners, LP operates as a subsidiary of CVR Energy, Inc.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Robert Rapier]

    Enter CVR Partners LP (NYSE: UAN), the only company in the US to produce fertilizer from petroleum coke (petcoke). Petcoke is a byproduct of petroleum refining, and prices are usually set off coal prices, since these two products compete in the same niche. Thus the same dynamics that currently threaten the distributions of Rentech Nitrogen Partners and Terra Nitrogen Company play in CVR Partners’ favor.

  • [By Robert Rapier]

    4. CVR Partners

    CVR Partners (NYSE: UAN) is a fertilizer MLP that suffered from the same declining margins and weak fertilizer prices that hurt Rentech Nitrogen Partners. The partnership’s price declined 36 percent in 2013. The annualized yield based on the past four quarters of distributions is 11.7 percent, but that is expected to decline when the next distribution is announced.

    5. Terra Nitrogen Company

  • [By Cameron Swinehart]

    Going forward I will be looking to add investments on my watchlist and trim other positions. It will be interesting to see how an overweight commodity portfolio will perform relative to the rest of the market.

     Cost Basis# SharesCurrent Price% of PortfolioCurrent ValueReturnMetal/Miners      Sprott Physical Gold Trust (PHYS)$12.4985$11.043.75%$938.40-13.13%Sprott Physical Silver Trust (PSLV)$7.95125$8.744.37%$1,092.509.04%FreePort-McMoran (FCX)$31.6731$33.874.20%$1,049.976.50%Ishares MSCI Global Gold Miners ETF (RING)$13.0695$10.644.04%$1,010.80-22.74%Energy      Statoil ASA(STO)$21.7940$22.683.63%$907.203.92%Vanguard Natural Resources LLC (VNR)$27.5636$27.874.01%$1,003.321.11%ConocoPhillips (COP)$63.6822.43$71.006.37%$1,592.5310.31%Agriculture      CVR Partner LP (UAN)$26.3630.9$18.932.34%$584.94-39.25%Adecoagro$6.78125$7.443.72%$930.008.87%Archer-Daniels Midland (ADM)$34.8030$37.244.47%$1,117.206.55%Mixed Commodity      Powershares DB Commodity Index (DBC)$26.3540$25.954.15%$1,038.00-1.54%Sprott Resource Corp$3.34400$2.714.34%$1,084.00-23.25%    Total % of portfolio49.40%               Cost Basis12,666.00      Current Value12,348.86      Return-2.50%  Source: Investing For The Future Surge In Commodity Prices

    Disclosure: I am long ADM, FCX, UAN, AGRO, RING, VNR, SCPZF.PK, COP, DBC, PHYS, PSLV. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. (More...)

Top 10 Forestry Companies To Invest In 2015: MercadoLibre Inc.(MELI)

MercadoLibre, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, hosts online commerce and payments platforms in Latin America. Its services are designed to provide its users with mechanisms to buy, sell, pay for, and collect on e-commerce transactions. The company principally offers MercadoLibre marketplace, an automated online commerce service, which permits businesses and individuals to list items and conduct their sales and purchases online in a fixed-price or auction-based format. Its MercadoLibre marketplace enables registered users to list and purchase motor vehicles, vessels, aircraft, real estate, and other services through online classified listings; and Internet users to browse through various products and services that are listed on its Website and to register with MercadoLibre to list, bid for, and purchase items and services. The company also provides MercadoPago, an integrated online payments solution to facilitate transactions on and off the MercadoLibre marketplace by providing a mechanism that allows its users to send and receive payments online. In addition, it offers MercadoClics advertising program that allows businesses to promote their products and services on the Internet. This program enables users and advertisers to place, display, and/or text advertisements on its Web pages to promote their brands and offerings. Further, the company provides MercadoShops on-line stores solution, a software-as-a-service, which allows users to set-up, manage, and promote their own on-line Webstores. As of December 31, 2010, the company operated online commerce platforms directed towards Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela; online payments solutions directed towards Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, Chile, and Colombia; and a real estate classified platform that covers various areas in Florida. The company was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Michael A. Robinson]

    Most people, for example, haven't heard of Buenos Aires-based Mercadolibre Inc. (NasdaqGS: MELI), a company I detailed last week.

    But they'd be better off if they had...

  • [By Brian Pacampara]

    Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, Latin American online auction operator MercadoLibre (NASDAQ: MELI  ) has earned a respected four-star ranking.

  • [By Paul Goodwin]

    Paul Goodwin: Well, one stock I kind of like right now is called Mercado Libre (MELI), it's essentially the eBay of Latin America, and its stock has been in an uptrend for awhile, and I think there is great opportunity in Latin America.

Top 10 Forestry Companies To Invest In 2015: MineralRite Corp (RITE)

MineralRite Corporation, formerly Royal Quantum Group Inc., incorporated on October 22, 1996, is a development-stage company. The Company is engaged in the acquisition, exploration and development of oil and gas and mineral properties. During the year ended December 31, 2009, the Company acquired a 36% interest in the drilling and development of the Gleason 4-16 well located in Oklahoma. In April 2013, it acquired the entire share capital of Goldfield International Inc.

The Company owns 100% interest in 1,540 acres that consist of 77 claims of prospective uranium property. The prospective uranium property is located adjacent to the Sheep Mountain Mine in Fremont County, Central Wyoming, approximately 90 miles southwest of Casper, Wyoming.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Peter Graham]

    Small cap stocks MineralRite Corp (OTCMKTS: RITE), New China Global Inc (OTCMKTS: NCGI) and Metrospaces Inc (OTCMKTS: MSPC) have all been getting some extra attention lately in various investment newsletters thanks to a few paid promotions. Of course, there is nothing wrong with properly disclosed promotions or investor relations type of activities, but they can and often do backfire on unwary investors and traders alike. So how hot are these three small caps for investors? Here is a quick reality check: