Friday, August 22, 2014

Top 5 High Tech Companies To Buy For 2014

In the short term, the stock market is a popularity contest. A high-performing stock gets the most coverage, and people begin buying shares simply because its price has been going up. This drives the price even higher, drawing more people into the stock. This can only go on for so long -- eventually, there aren't any buyers left. A horrific crash follows, leaving those who bought in late with staggering losses.

There's no telling how long it will take for this crash to occur. Often, even the smallest piece of bad news can trigger it. Let's take a look at a few stocks which have risen too far, too fast -- and might be set for a painful fall.

Unbridled enthusiasm

Electric car maker Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA  ) has been on a tremendous run so far this year. The stock has shot up like a rocket, with the company now valued at about $23 billion.

TSLA data by YCharts

Top 5 Supermarket Companies To Buy For 2015: Aflac Incorporated(AFL)

Aflac Incorporated, through its subsidiary, American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus (Aflac), provides supplemental health and life insurance. The company offers various voluntary supplemental insurance products, including cancer plans, general medical indemnity plans, medical/sickness riders, care plans, living benefit life plans, ordinary life insurance plans, and annuities in Japan. It also provides loss-of-income products, such as life and short-term disability plans; and products designed to protect individuals from depletion of assets, which comprise hospital indemnity, fixed-benefit dental, vision care, accident, cancer, critical illness/critical care, and hospital intensive care plans in the United States. The company sells its products through sales associates and brokers, affiliated corporate agencies, independent corporate agencies, and individual agencies. Aflac Incorporated was founded in 1955 and is headquartered in Columbus, Georgia.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Chuck Carnevale]

    Actually, there are several companies on these lists that qualified for either or both of my favorites lists. For example, Aflac (AFL) and or Emerson Electric (EMR) could easily be on both lists. My point is that I feel the reader should give the same consideration to each of these names as they would the two top 10 lists. To be clear, selecting the top 10 was difficult and therefore to a great extent subjective on my part. My method was to simply run a F.A.S.T. Graphs��on each Dividend Champion with above-average total return calculations. Then my lists were created by picking and choosing those companies that from my review looked best based on value, earnings and safety.

Top 5 High Tech Companies To Buy For 2014: Informatica Corporation (INFA)

Informatica Corporation provides enterprise data integration and data quality software and services worldwide. Its software solutions include a set of technologies that enable various enterprise-wide data integration initiatives. The company offers PowerCenter, which integrates data virtually from business systems in various formats and delivers that data throughout the enterprise; PowerExchange that enables IT organizations to access the sources of enterprise data without having to develop custom data access programs; and Informatica Data Services for finding, integrating, and managing data across the enterprise. It also provides Data Quality, which delivers data quality to stakeholders, projects, and data domains; Master Data Management that provides consolidated business-critical data; and B2B Data Exchange software for multi-enterprise data integration. In addition, the company offers application information lifecycle management products to manage various phases of the data lifecycle, from development and testing to archiving and retirement; complex event processing to detect, correlate, analyze, and respond to data-driven events; Ultra Messaging products, which enables ultra low latency messaging; and Cloud that delivers purpose-built data integration cloud applications to allow business users to integrate data across cloud-based applications, and on-premise systems and databases. Further, it offers product-related customer support, consulting, and education services. Informatica Corporation serves aerospace, automotive, energy and utilities, entertainment/media, financial services, healthcare/life sciences, high technology, insurance, manufacturing, public sector, retail, services, telecommunications, and travel/transportation industries through its direct sales force, as well as through systems integrators, resellers, distributors, and original equipment manufacturer partners. The company was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Red wood City, California.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Tim Beyers]

    Informatica (NASDAQ: INFA  ) also saw its shares jump after exceeding Q1 revenue targets, a nice switch for a company that had suffered stalling sales in the wake of the European debt crisis. During the quarter, the company signed 19 deals with more than $1 million.

  • [By Garrett Cook]

    In trading on Friday, technology shares were relative laggards, down on the day by about 0.80 percent. Top decliners in the sector included Silicon Laboratories (NASDAQ: SLAB), down 13.7 percent, and Informatica (NASDAQ: INFA), off 13.4 percent.

  • [By Lee Jackson]

    Informatica Corp. (NASDAQ: INFA) is the world’s number one independent provider of data integration software and is specializing in data masking for security. Gartner analysts wrote in the Data Masking Technology report that, “A growing number of enterprises are taking a strategic approach to adopting data masking,” and that “new use cases in data masking implementation have emerged and are evolving rapidly: DDM [dynamic data masking] and SDM [static data masking] for big data platforms, and the use of data masking in cloud access security brokers to address data security in the cloud platform.” Continued strength in business analytics bodes well for the company as it goes after IBM business. The Baird price target for the stock is $47, and the consensus is posted at $45.02. Informatica closed Wednesday at $43.49.

  • [By Luke Jacobi]

    Informatica (NASDAQ: INFA) was down, falling 12.3 percent to $30.65 after the company reported quarterly results and lowered its FY14 earnings forecast. Baird downgraded Informatica from Outperform to Neutral and lowered the price target from $45.00 to $36.00.

Top 5 High Tech Companies To Buy For 2014: Pioneer Floating Rate Trust(PHD)

Pioneer Floating Rate Trust is closed ended fixed income mutual fund launched and managed by Pioneer Investment Management, Inc. It invests in the fixed income markets of the United States. The fund primarily invests in senior secured floating-rate loans. It invests in fixed income securities with average credit quality of B. The fund benchmarks the performance of its portfolio against the Credit Suisse Leveraged Loan Index. Pioneer Floating Rate Trust was formed on October 6, 2004 and is domiciled in the United States.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By John Dowdee]

    The following 10 funds satisfied all of these conditions:

    BlackRock Float Rate Strategies (FRA). This CEF sells at a discount of 3%, which is low compared to an average premium of 2% over the past year. The distribution has been managed at 6.1% and a small amount (less than 10%) has been return of capital (ROC). However, this has not negatively affected net asset value (NAV) so has not been destructive. The fund holds 447 securities, with 90% in floating rate loans. FRA utilizes 27% leverage and has an expense ratio of 1.7%, including interest payments. Eaton Vance Floating Rate (EFR). This CEF sells at a 1% premium, which is low compared to an average premium of 5% over the past year. The distribution is 6.2%, none of which was ROC. The fund holds 800 securities, with 90% in floating rate loans. About 85% of the securities are from U.S. companies. EFR utilizes 35% leverage and has an expense ratio of 1.8% including interest payments. ING Prime Rate Trust (PPR). This CEF sells for a premium of 2%, which is below the average premium of 5%. It has a distribution of 6.8%, none of which was ROC. The fund has 350 holdings, virtually all in senior loans and from US companies. PPR utilizes 29% leverage and has a high expense ratio of 2.1%, including interest payments. Invesco VK Dynamic Credit Opportunities (VTA). This CEF sells for a discount of 5%, which is below the average discount of 1%. It has a distribution of 7.1%, none of which was ROC. The fund has 495 holdings, with 76% in floating rate loans. About 25% of the loans are from non-US companies. VTA utilizes a relatively low 20% leverage but still has a high expense ratio of 2.1%, including interest payments. Invesco VK Senior Income (VVR). This CEF sells for a discount of 1%, which is below the average premium of 3%. It has a distribution of 7.1%, none of which was ROC. The fund has over 500 holdings, with 89% in floating rate loans. Almost all (95%) securities are from US companies. VVR ut

Top 5 High Tech Companies To Buy For 2014: Amarantus Bioscience Holdings Inc (AMBS)

Amarantus BioScience Holdings, Inc., formerly Amarantus BioSciences, Inc., incorporated on March 22, 2013, is focuses on developing intellectual property and proprietary technology in order to develop drug candidates and diagnostic blood tests to diagnose and treat human diseases. The Company owns the intellectual property rights to a therapeutic protein known as Mesencephalic-Astrocyte-derived Neurotrophic Factor (MANF), owns the intellectual property rights to biomarkers related to oncology and neurodegeneration named BC-SeraPro and NuroPro respectively, has a license to an Alzheimer�� disease blood test named LymPro, and owns a number of proprietary cell lines called PhenoGuard. MANF was the first therapeutic protein discovered from a PhenoGuard Cell Line. In December 2012, the Company acquired neurodegenerative diagnostic portfolio from Power3 Medical Products. On March 22, 2013, the Company was merged with into Amarantus Bioscience Inc.

The Company also owns an inventory of 88 cell lines that Amarantus refers to as PhenoGuard Cell Lines. MANF is a protein that corrects protein misfolding. The Company�� MANF product development effort is centered on a therapy for Parkinson�� disease.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Bryan Murphy]

    Two weeks ago I penned some bullish thoughts on Amarantus BioScience, Inc. (OTC:AMBS). In simplest terms, I liked the way the stock had spent some time in consolidation mode, and looked like was testing the upper boundary of that zone - I figured a breakout from AMBS was imminent. So I waited... and waited.... and waited. Nothing. A week and a half later, I let the stock fall off my mental radar. As it turns out, I should have been a little more patient. Amarantus BioScience finally did the deed yesterday, and is following through today.

  • [By James E. Brumley]

    At first glance, Amarantus Bioscience Holdings, Inc. (OTCBB:AMBS) doesn't look like anything more than a volatile mess. It's up 17% today, but had been up twice that amount this morning. Even more exhausting is the fact AMBS, currently at $0.0529, had been as high as $0.089 and as low as $0.039 within the past three months. Point being, Amarantus Bioscience Holdings has been, and continues to be, all over the map.

  • [By Bryan Murphy]

    I've taken bullish swings on - and been wrong to do so - Amarantus BioScience, Inc. (OTC:AMBS) before. My most recent bullish call on the budding biotech name was in April... a rally that fizzled shortly after I said it was just getting started. Somehow though, I find myself coming back to AMBS as a breakout candidate. This time, however, it's for a slightly different reason.

  • [By James E. Brumley]

    Judging from the company it's keeping Green Automotive Co. (OTCMKTS:GACR) may have just made its way into the upper echelon of small cap stock opportunities. The electric car company joins Elite Pharmaceuticals Inc. (OTCBB:ELTP), Amarantus Bioscience Holdings, Inc. (OTCBB:AMBS), and only three other companies as Wall-Street.com's "Best 6 Stocks" for January of 2014. As one of the top information resources for investors - particularly in terms of information regarding small and micro cap stocks - being named among the site's top pick is an accolade for AMBS, ELTP, and GACR. Even more impressive is that Green Automotive Co. was the only consumer-goods name among those six. Amarantus Bioscience Holdings and Elite Pharmaceuticals are biotechnology names... an industry that can and often does attract a lot of attention just by the nature of the business. The other three names making the "Best 6" list were an energy explorer, a power-management technology manufacturer, and prescription/medical food producer. For an electric car manufacturer to make the list speaks quite highly of GACR.

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