Saturday, September 13, 2014

Best Investments For 2014

On Jul 11, 2013, we upgraded oilfield services behemoth National Oilwell Varco Inc. (NOV) to Neutral from Underperform. Our new investment thesis is supported by a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Why the Upgrade?

We like its healthy backlog, solid balance sheet and strength in international operations, particularly in the Middle East and Brazil. The Robbins & Myers acquisition will further boost NOV�� earnings visibility by expanding its blowout preventer product line; a critical safety machine for a well. The recent influx of offshore rig awards adds to the positive sentiment.

Detailed Analysis

Houston, TX-based NOV is one of the biggest manufacturers of drilling equipment in the world with an impressive business model. The company�� large installed base of rigs worldwide provides for a steady recurring revenue stream through demand for maintenance, parts and other expendable products.

NOV�� recently completed acquisition of smaller rival Robbins & Myers will allow the energy equipment contractor to broaden scale and scope of the solutions that it offers to oil and gas customers worldwide. In particular, the move will help NOV to strengthen its position as a supplier of blowout preventer (a critical safety machine that can shut a well off in case of an emergency), as Robbins & Myers is the fourth-largest maker of such devices.

Hot International Stocks To Own Right Now: Oxford Industries Inc.(OXM)

Oxford Industries, Inc. engages in designing, sourcing, and marketing apparel products primarily in the United States and the United Kingdom. The company?s apparel products comprise a portfolio of company-owned lifestyle brands, as well as company-owned and licensed brands of tailored clothing and golf apparel. Its owned and licensed brands include Tommy Bahama, Lilly Pulitzer, Ben Sherman, Billy London, Oxford Golf, Nickelson, and Arnold Brant. The company also holds licenses to produce and sell various categories of apparel products under the Kenneth Cole, Dockers, and Geoffrey Beene brand names. Its primary product line includes the Tommy Bahama brand men's and women's sportswear and related products for affluent men and women with age of 35 and older; the Lilly Pulitzer brand women's and girl's dresses, sportswear, and other products for young women, young mothers and their daughters, and women; the Ben Sherman brand men's sportswear and related products for men ages 25 to 40; and branded and private label men's suits, sport coats, suit separates, and dress slacks. In addition, the company licenses its Tommy Bahama, Lilly Pulitzer, and Ben Sherman brand names for various products categories, including apparel, accessories, footwear, watches, jewelry, luggage, rugs, wall coverings, fragrances and toiletries, shampoos and soaps, gift products, furniture, ceiling fans, stationery, bedding and home fashions, and table top accessories. Further, it operates restaurants under the Tommy Bahama brand name. It distributes company-owned lifestyle branded products through department stores, specialty stores, company-owned and licensed retail stores, and its e-commerce Websites; and branded and private label tailored clothing products through department stores, specialty stores, national chains, specialty catalogs, mass merchants, and Internet retailers. Oxford Industries, Inc. was founded in 1942 and is based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Ben Levisohn]

    Not investors in Restoration Hardware (RH). Its shares have dropped 2% in after-hours trading after it reported a profit of 49 cents a share, above forecasts for 43 cents, but offered mixed guidance. Oxford Industries (OXM) is off 7.3% at $60 after it announced a profit of $1.01, ahead of 98 cents consensus forecasts, but lowered its 2013 guidance. Shares of SunEdison (SUNE) have dropped 5.4% to $7.90 after it announced a secondary offering.

  • [By Dan Caplinger]

    Oxford Industries (NYSE: OXM  ) will release its quarterly report on Tuesday, and investors have stayed optimistic about the apparel company's prospects, bidding the shares to all-time record highs in the past few months. With expectations for growth in Oxford earnings so high, though, investors need to be careful not to let the company's stock price get ahead of its fundamental business prospects.

Best Investments For 2014: Thomson Reuters Corp(TRI)

Thomson Reuters Corporation provides intelligent information for businesses and professionals worldwide. The company allows market participants to connect, access content, and trade in a secure environment through Thomson Reuters Eikon desktop, Thomson Reuters Elektron network, content integration and management technology, content feeds and databases, and transactions infrastructure solutions that support buy- and sell-side customers to trade in foreign exchange, fixed income and derivatives, equities, exchange-traded instruments, and commodities and energy markets. It also offers information, analytics, workflow, and technology solutions to buy-side and off-trading floor customers; access to liquidity in over-the-counter markets, trade execution, and connections for market participants and financial professionals? communities; and a suite of solutions offering informed outcomes to regulated industries and law firms. In addition, the company provides critical information , decision support tools, and software and services to legal, investigation, business, and government professionals; integrated tax compliance and accounting software and services for accounting and law firms, corporations, and government professionals; intellectual property and scientific resources that enable its customers to discover, develop, and deliver innovations; and data analytics, and performance benchmarking solutions and services to healthcare sector. Further, it offers coverage of global, regional, and national news in 20 languages covering politics, business, finance, entertainment, lifestyle, technology, health, science, and sports; and engages in advertising-supported direct-to-consumer publishing activities of Reuters.com and its network of Websites, mobile applications, and electronic out-of-home displays. The company was formerly known as The Thomson Corporation and changed its name to Thomson Reuters Corporation in April 2008. The company is headquartered in New York, New York.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Associated Press]

    Ron Brown, head of Elektron Analytics, a Thomson Reuters (NYSE: TRI  ) unit that sells news feeds that computers can read, said that the words "explosions" or "Obama" alone wouldn't have triggered selling. But add "White House," and it's a combination even the slowest computer couldn't miss.

Best Investments For 2014: Enbridge Energy Management LLC (EEQ)

Enbridge Energy Management, L.L.C. operates as a limited partner of Enbridge Energy Partners, L.P. that owns and operates crude oil and liquid petroleum transportation and storage assets in the United States. It also owns and operates natural gas gathering, treating, processing, transportation, and marketing assets. The company manages and controls the business and affairs of Enbridge Energy Partners, L.P. Enbridge Energy Management, L.L.C. was founded in 2002 and is based in Houston, Texas.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By David Dittman]

    Question: What are the differences among Enbridge Income Fund Holdings Inc (TSX: ENF, OTC: EBGUF), Enbridge Energy Partners LP (NYSE: EEP), Enbridge Inc (TSX: ENB, NYSE: ENB) and Enbridge Energy Management LLC (NYSE: EEQ)?

Best Investments For 2014: Solarwinds Inc.(SWI)

SolarWinds, Inc. designs, develops, markets, sells, and supports enterprise information technology (IT) infrastructure management software for IT professionals in various organizations in the United States and internationally. The company offers enterprise-class IT management products, including Network Performance Monitor, a server-based fault and performance management platform to minimize network downtime; Network Performance Monitor modules, a series of add-ons; network configuration manager to automate the processes of network device discovery, network inventory management, and network change management; user device tracker, a server-based switch port management tool; scalability engines to increase the scale of a number of the products; and enterprise operations console to provide web-based views of various instances of Network Performance Monitor modules and Application Performance Monitor. Its enterprise-class network and IT management products also comprise Applic ation Performance Monitor, a server-based availability and performance management system for applications and server infrastructure; patch manager to automate the process of deploying, managing, and reporting on patches and configuration settings; and synthetic end user monitor to capture the user steps of any web application and monitor the end-user experience; storage manager that combines reporting, monitoring, and notification on the performance of storage resources; backup profiler to provide a consolidated view of the status of backup operations; virtualization manager to manage various aspects of virtual server infrastructure; and log and event manager to automate the collection and interpretation of logs. In addition, the company provides free tools, such as desktop, laptop, server-based, or internet-based applications; and tools and toolsets for specific solutions of routine and complicated tasks. The company was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas .

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Travis Hoium]

    What: Shares of SolarWinds (NYSE: SWI  ) dropped 14% today as investors reacted to the company's acquisition plans.

    So what: Yesterday, the company announced it will buy N-able, a cloud-based IT infrastructure company, for $120 million. This is expected to reduce 2013 earnings and there's no guarantee the acquisition will pay off, so investors sold off shares today. �

  • [By Hilary Kramer]

    Next Page

    Tech Stocks That’ll Survive: SolarWinds (SWI)

    SolarWinds (SWI), contrary to what you might think from its name, is not a solar company. It is a software company with a presence in both virtualization and security, and offers solid profit potential thanks to dedicated customers and a growth rate that is already outpacing the overall industry.

Best Investments For 2014: Evertec Inc (EVTC)

EVERTEC, Inc. (EVERTEC), formerly Carib Latam Holdings, Inc., incorporated on January 26, 1989, is a full service transaction processing business in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Company provides a range of merchant acquiring, payment processing and business process management services across 19 countries in the region. It processes over 1.8 billion transactions annually, and manages the electronic payment network for over 4,100 automated teller machines (ATM) and over 104,000 point-of-sale payment terminals. It is the merchant acquirer in the Caribbean and Central America and in Latin America. The Company owns and operates the ATH network, one of ATM and personal identification number debit networks in Latin America. In addition, it provides a suite of services for core bank processing, cash processing and technology outsourcing. It serves a diversified customer base of financial institutions, merchants, corporations and government agencies with technology solutions.

The Company serves a diversified customer base of financial institutions, merchants, corporations and government agencies with technology solutions that are essential to their operations, enabling them to issue, process and accept transactions securely. The Company�� broad suite of services span the entire transaction processing value chain and include a range of front-end customer facing solutions as well as back-end support services. These include: merchant acquiring services, which enable POS and e-commerce merchants to accept and process electronic methods of payment such as debit, credit, prepaid and electronic benefits transfer (EBT) cards; payment processing services, which enable financial institutions and other issuers to manage, support and facilitate the processing for credit, debit, prepaid, ATM and EBT card programs; and business process management solutions, which provide mission critical technology solutions such as core bank processing, as well as information technology (IT) outsourcing and cash mana! gement services to financial institutions, enterprises and governments. The Company offers its customers end-to-end products and solutions across the transaction processing value chain from a single source across numerous channels and geographic markets.

Merchant Acquiring

Merchant Acquiring business provides services to merchants at over 25,000 locations that allow them to accept electronic methods of payment such as debit, credit, prepaid and EBT cards carrying the ATH, Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express brands. Its suite of merchant acquiring services includes, but is not limited to, the underwriting of each merchant�� contract, the deployment of POS devices and other equipment necessary to capture merchant transactions, the processing of transactions at the point-of-sale, the settlement of funds with the participating financial institution, detailed sales reports and customer support. The Company�� Merchant Acquiring business generated 20.4%, of total revenues and 26.6%, of total segment income from operations for the year ended December 31, 2012.

Payment Processing

It provide diversified suite of payment processing products and services to blue chip regional and global corporate customers, government agencies, and financial institutions across Latin American and the Caribbean. These services provide the infrastructure technology necessary to facilitate the processing and routing of payments across the transaction processing value chain. At the point-of-sale, it sell transaction processing technology, similar to the services in its Merchant Acquiring business, to other merchant acquirers to enable them to service their its merchant customers. It also offer terminal driving solutions to merchants, merchant acquirers (including its Merchant Acquiring business) and financial institutions, which provide the technology to securely operate, manage and monitor POS terminals and ATMs. It also sells and rent POS devices to financial insti! tution cu! stomers who seek to deploy them across their own businesses. As of December 31, 2012, the Company provides technology services for over 4,100 ATMs and over 104,000 POS terminals in the region and is continuously certifying new machines and devices to expand this reach. The Company�� Payment Processing business accounted for 27.7%, of total revenues and of total segment income from operations for the year ended December 31, 2012.

Business Solutions

The Company provides its financial institution, corporate and government customers with a full suite of business process management solutions including specifically core bank processing, network hosting and management, IT consulting services, business process outsourcing, item and cash processing, and fulfillment. The Company�� Business Solutions business accounted for 51.9%, of total revenues and 31.3%, of total segment income from operations for the year ended December 31, 2012.

The Company Competes with Vantiv, Inc., First Data Corporation, Global Payment Inc., Elavon, Inc., Sage Payment Solutions, Fidelity National Information Services, Inc., Fiserv, Inc. and Total System Services, Inc.

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

    Shares of EVERTEC (NYSE: EVTC) got a boost, shooting up 8.91 percent to $22.99 after the company reported the commencement of offering by selling holders.

Best Investments For 2014: Kayne Anderson MLP Investment Co (KYN)

Kayne Anderson MLP Investment Company, incorporated on June 4, 2004, is a non-diversified, closed-end investment company. The Company�� investment objective is to obtain a high after-tax total return by investing at least 85% of its total assets plus any borrowings in energy-related master limited partnerships (MLPs) and their affiliates, and in other companies that, as their principal business, operate assets used in the gathering, transporting, processing, storing, refining, distributing, mining or marketing of natural gas, natural gas liquids, crude oil, refined petroleum products or coal (collectively with MLPs referred to as Midstream Energy Companies). The Company�� portfolio investments principally consist of equity securities issued by MLPs.

Kayne Anderson MLP Investment Company may invest up to 15% of its total assets in any single issuer. It may invest up to 20% of its total assets in debt securities, which may include below investment-grade securities. The Company�� portfolio includes investments in pipeline MLPs, propane MLPs, shipping MLPs, coal MLPs and upstream MLPs. The Company�� investment advisor is Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, L.P.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Jon C. Ogg]

    The ETFs and funds held up on Monday:

    JPMorgan Alerian MLP Index ETN (NYSEArca: AMJ) was down only 0.3% at $46.86, versus a 52-week range of $42.18 to $49.31. Volume was 1.1 million shares versus an average of about 628,000. ALPS Alerian MLP ETF (NYSEArca: AMLP) closed down 0.45 at $17.57, versus a 52-week range of $16.75 to $18.36. This ETF traded more than 3.1 million shares, up from an average of about 2.85 million shares. The closed-end fund of Kayne Anderson MLP Investment Company (NYSE: KYN) even managed to rise by 0.26% to $38.70 against a 52-week range of $33.11 to $40.22. Its volume was also almost 300,000 shares versus an average volume of closer to 218,000 shares.

    It still seems more than interesting that the investment community did not pound the rest of the sector in sympathy with Boardwalk. This Boardwalk MLP still has a $3.1 billion market cap, even after getting cut almost in half. Usually investors try to tie in peers when one implosion is seen versus others. It seems as though they are trusting that negative natural gas exposure here is not going to spill over into the rest of the sector, and maybe not even spill over into the price of units in its more direct peers.

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