For his top conservative stock pick for the coming year, J. Royden Ward, Chief Analyst of Cabot Benjamin Graham Value Investor, looks to a leading offshore oil and natural gas drilling company.
Ensco PLC (ESV) owns and operates shallow water and ultra-deepwater rigs, located in many parts of the world.
Two new drilling rigs are ready to begin multi-year contracts with major international oil companies. Six more rigs are under construction.
In addition, Ensco is spending heavily on standardizing and modernizing its drilling fleet, which will help the company maintain its advantage over competitors.
Demand for Ensco's drilling rigs is solid, and will likely strengthen further during the next several years. Sales will rise 15% in 2014, and EPS will climb 17% to 7.20.
Ensco has been named Number One in total customer satisfaction for the third consecutive year. The low current P/E (price to 2013 earnings) ratio of 8.9 and the high dividend yield of 5.5% are very attractive.
Top 5 High Dividend Stocks To Buy For 2015: Haverty Furniture Companies Inc. (HVT)
Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. operates as a specialty retailer of residential furniture and accessories. The company provides its products under the Havertys brand name. It also offers mattress products under the Sealy, Serta, and Tempur-Pedic names. In addition, the company provides financing through an internal revolving charge credit plan, as well as a third-party finance company. Its customers include college educated women in middle to upper-middle income households. Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. sells home furnishings through its retail stores, as well as through its Website. As of March 31, 2013, the company operated was 121 retail stores. Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. was founded in 1885 and is based in Atlanta, Georgia.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Ben Levisohn]
Haverty Furniture�(HVT) has gained 3.9% to $28.20 after the furniture retailer beat analyst forecasts.
Office Depot (ODP) has plunged 17% to $4.45 after missing earnings and revenue forecasts.�Home Depot (HD), however, has gained 2.2% to $79.60 after beating forecasts by two cents thanks to a stronger U.S. housing market.
- [By Ben Levisohn]
Shares of La-Z-Boy have gained 11% to $27.02 at 1:54 p.m. today. Its performance is also giving other furniture stocks a boost. Flexsteel (FLXS) has risen 1% to $27.60, Hooker Furniture (HOFT) has jumped 1.6% to $17.12 and Ethan Allen International (ETH) has advanced 1.2% to $29.20. Haverty Furniture (HVT) has dipped 0.3% to $27.87.
Top 5 High Dividend Stocks To Buy For 2015: SP Bancorp Inc.(SPBC)
SP Bancorp, Inc. operates as the holding company for SharePlus Federal Bank that provides community banking products and services to individuals, families, and businesses in the United States. The company offers various deposit products, including noninterest-bearing and interest-bearing demand accounts, savings accounts, money market accounts, and certificates of deposit. Its loan portfolio includes residential mortgage loans secured by residential real estate; commercial real estate and home equity loans, including lines of credit and home improvement loans; consumer loans consisting primarily of automobile loans; and commercial business loans. The company also provides brokerage services for the purchase and sale of non-deposit investment and insurance products through a third-party brokerage arrangement. It provides its services through seven branches, four of which are located near the Bank's headquarters in Plano, Texas; two branches are located in Louisville, Kentuc ky; and one branch is located in Irvine, California. The company was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Plano, Texas.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Lisa Levin]
SP Bancorp (NASDAQ: SPBC) shares touched a new 52-week high of $28.90 after the company agreed to be acquired by Green Bancorp for $46.2 million in cash.
Best Supermarket Companies To Invest In Right Now: SofTech Inc (SOFT)
SofTech, Inc., incorporated on June 11, 1969,is a provider of engineering software solutions with its ProductCenter PLM (product lifecycle management) technology and its computer-aided design product CADRA offering. On May 24, 2011, the Company sold its Advanced Manufacturing Technology (AMT) product line. In October 2013, SofTech, Inc announced that it has completed the sale of substantially all of the assets of its CADRA product line.
ProductCente
The Company's ProductCenter technology manages the engineering data and electronic files of discrete parts designed in third party design technologies offered primarily by Solidworks, Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC) and Autodesk. ProductCenter is an enterprise, collaborative PLM solution delivering a combination of document management, design integration, configuration control, change management, bill of materials management and integration capability with other enterprise systems. ProductCenter is designed to help companies optimize the product development process. ProductCenter provides for the secure management of product information and allows engineers and the entire design chain to manage, share, modify and track product data and documents throughout the product development lifecycle.
The Company�� ProductCenter supports engineering change management and bill of materials management for automating business processes. ProductCenter also enables integration with other business applications, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM) and customer relationship management (CRM) for continuous data exchange across the product lifecycle.
CADRA
The Company�� CADRA offering is a drafting and design software package for the professional mechanical engineer. The CADRA family of CAD/CAM products includes CADRA Design Drafting, a mechanical design documentation tool, CADRA NC, a 2 through 5 axis NC programming application, and CADRAWorks with SolidWorks p! roviding for an integrated drawing production system and three dimensional (3D)solid modeler. The CADRA family of products includes a collection of translators and software options.
The Company competes with Autodesk, Dassault, Siemens, and PTC
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Peter Graham]
Small cap tech, mobile or cloud computing stocks SofTech, Inc (OTCMKTS: SOFT), Firstin Wireless Technology Inc (OTCMKTS: FINW) and Izea Inc (OTCMKTS: IZEA) have been getting some extra attention lately in various investment newsletters or alerts. That�� because at least one of these stocks appears to be the subject of paid third party promotions while another is the focus of an apparent investor relations campaign. Keeping that in mind, are these three tech orientated stocks going to bring profits to investors and traders or bring out the luddite in them? Here is a closer look:
Top 5 High Dividend Stocks To Buy For 2015: Luminex Corporation(LMNX)
Luminex Corporation engages in the development, manufacture, and sale of proprietary biological testing technologies and products for the life sciences and diagnostic industries. It offers xMAP technology, an open architecture and multiplexing technology that allows simultaneous analysis of approximately 500 bioassays from a drop of fluid by reading biological tests on the surface of microscopic polystyrene beads called microspheres. The company?s xMAP technology is used in various segments of the life sciences industry, such as the fields of drug discovery and development, clinical diagnostics, genetic analysis, bio-defense, food safety, and biomedical research. It operates in two segments, Technology and Strategic Partnerships; and Assays and Related Products. The Technology and Strategic Partnerships segment provides Luminex LX 100/200 that integrates fluidics, optics, and digital signal processing; FLEXMAP 3D system for use as a general laboratory instrument; and MAGP IX system, a multiplexing analyzer for qualitative and quantitative analysis of proteins and nucleic acids. This segment also offers consumables comprising dyed polystyrene microspheres and sheath fluids. The Assays and Related Products segment develops and sells assays on xMAP technology for use on its installed base of systems. This segment?s products are focused on the human genetics, personalized medicine, and infectious disease segments of the genetic testing market. This segment provides various assay products, which consist of a combination of chemical and biological reagents, and company?s proprietary bead technology used to perform diagnostic and research assays on samples. It serves pharmaceutical companies, clinical laboratories, research institutions, and medical institutions in the United States, Europe, Asia, Canada, and Australia. The company was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Roberto Pedone]
A health care stock that insiders are jumping into here is Luminex (LMNX), which develops, manufactures and sells proprietary biological testing technologies and products with applications throughout the life sciences and diagnostics industries. Insiders are buying this stock into notable strength, since shares are up 23.2% so far in 2013.
Luminex has a market cap of $859 million and an enterprise value of $784 million. This stock trades at a premium valuation, with a price-to-sales of 119.83 and a price-to-book of 33.63. Its estimated growth rate for this year is 36.7%, and for next year it's pegged at 51.2%. This is a cash-rich company, since the total cash position on its balance sheet is $42.97 million and its total debt is just $1.67 million.
A director just bought 27,000 shares, or about $540,000 worth of stock, at $20.01 per share.
From a technical perspective, LMNX is currently trending above its 200-day and just below is 50-day moving average, which is neutral trendwise. This stock recently gapped down sharply from $23.50 to $19.75 a share with heavy downside volume flows. Following that move, shares of LMNX have started to rebound off $19.75 and the stock is starting to push within range of triggering a near-term breakout trade.
If you're bullish on LMNX, then look for long-biased trades as long as this stock is trending some key near-term support at $19.75, and then once it breaks out above its 50-day at $21.14 a share and above its gap down day high of $21.83 a share with high volume. Look for a sustained move or close above those levels with volume that hits near or above its three-month average volume of 206,755 shares. If that breakout hits soon, then LMNX will set up to re-test or possibly take out its 52-week high at $24.10. Any high-volume move above that level will then give LMNX a chance to tag $25 to $26.
- [By Markus Aarnio]
Illumina's competitors include Affymetrix (AFFX), Life Technologies Corporation (LIFE) and Luminex Corporation (LMNX). Here is a table comparing these companies.
- [By Seth Jayson]
There's no foolproof way to know the future for Luminex (Nasdaq: LMNX ) or any other company. However, certain clues may help you see potential stumbles before they happen -- and before your stock craters as a result.
- [By Sean Williams]
Now what: Normally, a $5 million haircut isn't a big deal. However, if a company is losing money and that $5 million is a clean 14% below its original forecasts, then it's certainly going to garner a negative reaction. It also doesn't help that Natural Molecular Testing Corporation -- that aforementioned "large customer" -- recently entered in a multi-year collaboration with Luminex (NASDAQ: LMNX ) earlier this month, casting a gray cloud over GenMark's future revenue stream with NMTC. Until we get better visibility from GenMark's management team and see the company moving toward profitability, this is a name I'd suggest keeping your distance from.
Top 5 High Dividend Stocks To Buy For 2015: Essex Property Trust Inc. (ESS)
Essex Property Trust, Inc. operates as a self-administered and self-managed real estate investment trust in the United States. It engages in the ownership, operation, management, acquisition, development, and redevelopment of apartment communities, as well as commercial properties. As of March 31, 2012, the company owned or had interests in 158 apartment communities; and 5 commercial buildings, as well as 5 development projects. Its communities are located in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Ventura counties in southern California; and the San Francisco Bay area in northern California, as well as in the Seattle metropolitan area. The company has elected to be taxed as a real estate investment trust. As a result, it would not be subject to corporate income tax on that portion of its net income that is distributed to shareholders. Essex Property Trust, Inc. was founded in 1971 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Jayson Derrick]
Bloomberg reported�Essex Property Trust Inc. (NYSE: ESS) has made an offer to acquire BRE Properties for about $5 billion.
BRE Properties Chief Executive Office Constance B. Moore had publicly hinted earlier this year that the company would consider ��ny legitimate proposal��after an investment firm Land & Buildings had made a $4.6 billion offer valued at $60 a share.
- [By Sean Williams]
To get a better idea of how RealPage is doing, it's always best to look at occupancy rates for some of the nation's biggest residential-REITs. In AvalonBay Communities' (NYSE: AVB ) most recent quarter, the company reported a 5% increase in revenue attributable to a 4.7% boost in prices in established communities, and a 0.3% uptick in occupancy. For Equity Residential (NYSE: EQR ) it was much of the same, with revenue rising 5.4% in the fourth-quarter as occupancy rates rose 40 basis points to 95.4% from the year-ago period. Finally, Essex Property Trust (NYSE: ESS ) delivered some of the strongest occupancy results of all, with 96.9% of its units occupied as of the end of January. The point is that with occupancy rates at their lowest levels in more than a decade, these residential REITs are driving growth by boosting prices because of rent scarcity.
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