Saying that Best Buy (NYSE: BBY ) stock has had an impressive run so far this year is a gross understatement. The stock has gained more than 119% year to date, compared to a return of just 10% for the broader market. However, don't let the stock's rally deceive you into thinking Best Buy's turnaround plans have gotten off without a hitch. Current shareholders of Best Buy stock should be careful, lest the stock come crashing back to reality.
A tight fix
Earlier this week, Best Buy stock hit another 52-week high after the company agreed to sell its 50% stake in Best Buy Europe to its joint venture partner Carphone Warehouse Group. The cash and stock deal is valued at about $775 million. The deal should help fund Best Buy's turnaround effort, though it's still a loss on investment for the company given its original buy-in five years ago for $2.15 billion. Meanwhile, Best Buy faces no shortage of complications back home.
Amazon's�low prices, convenient platform, and speedy shipping have made Best Buy's big box retail strategy all but obsolete. In a late bid to counter comparison-shopping, Best Buy started matching online prices. However, showrooming is the least of Best Buy's worries at this point. In addition to online competition, the consumer electronics chain also faces shrinking margins, declining sales, and deteriorating profitability.
Top Shipping Stocks To Own For 2015: Responsys Inc.(MKTG)
Responsys, Inc. provides on-demand software and professional services primarily in North America, the Asia Pacific, and Europe. The company offers Responsys Interact suite, a software-as-a-service platform that provides marketers with a set of integrated applications to create, execute, optimize, and automate marketing campaigns in various channels, including email, mobile, social, and the Web. Its platform also leverages third-party applications and data from real-time sources allowing customers to deliver targeted content to its customers and known prospects as part of their interactive marketing campaigns. In addition, it provides professional services, such as strategic, creative, deliverability, campaign, and education services. The company offers its on-demand software and professional services to retail and consumer, travel, financial services, and technology industries through a direct sales force. Responsys, Inc. was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in San Bru no, California.
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 Responsys (Nasdaq: MKTG ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below. - [By The GeoTeam]
Our recent 2013 articles on SaaS companies Selectica (SLTC), E2open (EOPN), Responsys (MKTG), Vocus (VOCS), and ExactTarget (ET) highlighted such opportunities. The average return since the inception of our coverage currently stands at around 34% (55% at their highs).
Top Shipping Stocks To Own For 2015: Pacific Capital Bancorp(PCBC)
Pacific Capital Bancorp operates as the bank holding company for Santa Barbara Bank & Trust, National Association, N.A. that provides various commercial and consumer banking services to households, professionals, and businesses. It offers depository services, such as checking accounts, interest-bearing checking or NOW accounts, money market accounts, individual retirement accounts, savings deposits, and certificates of deposit. The company provides loan products, including commercial and industrial loans, commercial real estate loans, lines of credit, letters of credit, asset based lending, construction loans, and land acquisition and development loans to small business and middle market commercial clients; residential real estate loans, home equity lines and loans, and consumer loans to individual clients; and small business administration loans for working capital, business acquisitions, acquisition of real estate, growth capital, and equipment financing. It also offers safe deposit boxes, travelers? checks, money orders, foreign exchange services, and cashiers? checks, as well as provides trust and investment advisory services; investment reviews, analysis, and customized portfolio management for separately managed accounts; full service brokerage; trust and fiduciary services; equity and fixed income management; and real estate and specialty asset management. As of December 19, 2011, the company operated 47 retail branches in the central coast of California. It also operates loan production centers, automated teller machines, and customer contact call centers, as well as offers services through online banking. The company was founded in 1960 and is headquartered in Santa Barbara, California.
Top 5 Medical Companies To Watch For 2014: National Technical Systems Inc.(NTSC)
National Technical Systems, Inc., a diversified technical services company, provides engineering and compliance testing services to the defense, aerospace, telecommunications, automotive, energy, consumer products, and industrial products markets worldwide. The company offers product life-cycle product integrity support services, including design engineering, compliance, testing, certification, quality registration, and program management. It provides conformity assessment and management system registration services, as well as technology services for product certification, product safety testing, and product evaluation. The company also offers management registration and certification services. The company was founded in 1961 and is based in Calabasas, California.
Top Shipping Stocks To Own For 2015: Bank Of Ireland(BKIR.L)
The Governor and Company of the Bank of Ireland provides banking and other financial services to small and medium-sized commercial and industrial companies in Ireland and internationally. The company?s products include interest and non-interest bearing current accounts; demand and time deposit accounts; savings accounts; loans to customers, including overdrafts, installment credit, and finance lease receivables; and mortgage loans for house purchases, home improvement loans, and secured personal loans, as well as term loans, working capital finance, and business and corporate loans. It also offers international asset financing, leasing, installment credit, invoice discounting, foreign exchange facilities, and interest and exchange rate hedging instruments; and executor, trustee, life assurance, pension, and financial advisory services, including mergers and acquisitions. In addition, the company provides treasury products and services, credit card, online and telephone ba nking services, private banking, and fiduciary services; and car, home, and life insurance products, as well as offers an ATM infrastructure and related services in various post office locations. Further, it provides foreign currency note services and international money payment services to various banking institutions throughout the United States and Canada. As of December 31, 2010, it operated 298 bank branches, including 254 branches in Ireland and 44 branches in northern Ireland, as well as 1,280 ATMs The Governor and Company of the Bank of Ireland was founded in 1783 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland.
Top Shipping Stocks To Own For 2015: KB Home (KBH)
KB Home is a homebuilding company. The Company constructs and sells homes through its operating divisions under the name KB Home. The Company operates in nine states and 32 markets, including California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Texas, Florida, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia. The Company organizes its homebuilding operations into four segments: West Coast, Southwest, Central and Southeast. In July 2012, it acquired land within the Elworthy Ranch property in the town of Danville. In September 2012, it acquired Mason Ranch, which is a 330-acre land asset in Cedar Park/Leander West, submarkets in metropolitan Austin. In December 2012, the Company acquired 65 lots in Fuquay-Varina, N.C.
Homebuilding
The Company�� homebuilding operations offers a variety of homes designed primarily for first-time, move-up and active adult homebuyers, including attached and detached single-family homes, townhomes and condominiums. It offers homes in development communities, at urban in-fill locations and as part of mixed-use projects. During the fiscal year ended, November 30, 2011 (fiscal 2011), the Company, through its homebuilding segment, delivered 5,812 homes. During fiscal 2011, homebuilding operations accounted for 99.2% of the total revenues.
Financial Services
The financial services segment provides title and insurance services to its homebuyers. This segment also provided mortgage banking services to the Company�� homebuyers indirectly through KBA Mortgage, LLC (KBA Mortgage), a former unconsolidated joint venture of a subsidiary of ours and a subsidiary of Bank of America, N.A., from the venture�� formation until June 30, 2011, when it ceased offering mortgage banking services. Effective June 27, 2011, it entered into a marketing services agreement with MetLife Home Loans, a division of MetLife Bank, N.A. Under the agreement, MetLife Home Loans��personnel, located on site at several of its new home communities, can offer financing options and re! sidential consumer mortgage loan products to its homebuyers, and originate residential consumer mortgage loans for homebuyers who elect to use MetLife Home Loans. The Company�� homebuyers may also elect to use other providers of mortgage banking services. Its financial services operations accounted for 0.8% of the Company�� total revenues in fiscal 2011.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Dan Caplinger]
Yet industry CEOs remain convinced that the recovery is for real. KB Home's (NYSE: KBH ) Jeffrey Mezger said recently that he sees the recovery as being only in its early stages, while PulteGroup (NYSE: PHM ) CEO Richard Dugas pointed to strength on the East Coast, in the middle third of the country, and in Phoenix, with Pulte actually slowing its sales rate down in order to try to focus on the highest-margin business available. For Hovnanian's part, CEO Ara Hovnanian pointed to year-over-year gains in every one of the past 12 months as evidence of the strength of the recovery.
- [By Anora Mahmudova]
Shares in KB Home (KBH) �fell 2.7%, while Toll Brothers�� (TOL) �shares lost 1.6%.
Top Shipping Stocks To Own For 2015: Fenner(FENR.L)
Fenner PLC engages in the manufacture and distribution of conveyor belting and precision polymer products primarily in Europe, the Americas, the Asia Pacific, and Africa. It operates through two segments, Conveyor Belting and Advanced Engineered Products. The Conveyor Belting segment manufactures heavyweight ply, woven, PVC, and steel cord conveyor belting for mining, power generation, and industrial applications. This segment also installs, monitors, and services conveyor systems for its mining customers. The Advanced Engineered Products segment produces precision polymer products, which comprise precision drives for computer peripherals, copiers, and ATMs; power transmission and motion transfer components; silicone and complex hoses for heavy duty trucks, buses, and off-road vehicles; seals and sealing solutions for the fluid power and oil and gas industries; technical textiles for medical and industrial applications, and silicone based products for medical applications; rollers for digital image processing and medical diagnostics; and fluropolymer components for fluid and gas handling. The company?s principal markets include underground mining; hardrock mining; aggregates; power generation; grain; forestry; package handling; moving walkways; paper handling; computer peripherals; copiers; electrical/mechanical equipment; agricultural machinery; heating, ventilating, and air conditioning; diesel engines; pharmaceuticals; machine tools; mobile hydraulics; off-highway machines; mechanical handling; construction equipment; process industries; electronics, oil, gas, and aerospace; medical textiles; digital image transfer rollers; and technical fabrics. Fenner PLC was founded in 1861 and is based in Hessle, the United Kingdom.
Top Shipping Stocks To Own For 2015: Actions Semiconductor Co. Ltd.(ACTS)
Actions Semiconductor Co., Ltd. operates as a semiconductor company in the People?s Republic of China. The company designs, develops, and markets integrated platform solutions, including system-on-a-chips (SoCs), firmware, software development tools, and reference designs for the manufacturers of portable media players. Its SoCs are integrated circuits that incorporate digital signal processor, a micro controller unit, embedded memory, codec, a power management unit, and other components. The company?s SoCs products also comprise on-chip memory, controllers for color liquid crystal display, and analog components, including digital-to-analog converters, phase lock loops, and USB transceivers. Actions Semiconductor Co., Ltd.?s solution development kits include the embedded firmware code, software tools, and documentation to utilize its SoCs in portable media players. The company?s firmware utilizes an embedded structure design with interface that allows customers to pick and choose functionalities and add new device drivers. Its manufacturing software tools also allow its customers in the mass production of products based on its turnkey process. The company?s reference designs consist of detailed specifications of other required components and references, which allow customers to assemble a portable media player. Actions Semiconductor Co., Ltd. also offers semiconductor product testing services. The company sells its integrated platform solutions directly, as well as through distributors to portable media player manufacturers, brand owners, and value-added distributors in China and internationally. Actions Semiconductor Co., Ltd. was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Zhuhai, the People?s Republic of China.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Seth Jayson]
When judging a company's prospects, how quickly it turns cash outflows into cash inflows can be just as important as how much profit it's booking in the accounting fantasy world we call "earnings." This is one of the first metrics I check when I'm hunting for the market's best stocks. Today, we'll see how it applies to Actions Semiconductor (Nasdaq: ACTS ) .
Top Shipping Stocks To Own For 2015: Mainstreet Equity Com Npv (MEQ.TO)
Mainstreet Equity Corp., a residential real estate company, engages in the acquisition, divestiture, value-enhancement, and management of multi-family residential properties in Canada. The company owns a portfolio of multi-family residential properties in Vancouver lower mainland, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, and the Greater Toronto area. As of September 30, 2012, it had a total portfolio was 7,516 residential units consisting of townhouses, garden-style apartments, and mid-rise and high-rise apartments; and 664 residential units held for sale. The company was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.
Top Shipping Stocks To Own For 2015: Hudson Technologies Inc.(HDSN)
Hudson Technologies, Inc., through its subsidiary, Hudson Technologies Company, provides refrigerant services and solutions in the refrigeration industry primarily in the United States. Its products and services include refrigerant sales; refrigerant management services consisting primarily of reclamation of refrigerants; RefrigerantSide services comprising system decontamination to remove moisture, oils, and other contaminants. The RefrigerantSide services also include predictive and diagnostic services for industrial and commercial refrigeration applications, which are designed to predict potential catastrophic problems and identify inefficiencies in an operating system. The company?s products and services are primarily used in commercial air conditioning, industrial processing, and refrigeration systems. It sells reclaimed and new refrigerants to customers in air conditioning and refrigeration industry. The company serves commercial, industrial, and government customer s, as well as refrigerant wholesalers, distributors, contractors, and refrigeration equipment manufacturers; and customers in petrochemical, pharmaceutical, industrial power, manufacturing, commercial facility, and property management and maritime industries. Hudson Technologies, Inc. has a strategic alliance with The Linde Group to market its service offering outside the United States. The company was founded in 1991 and is headquartered in Pearl River, New York.
Top Shipping Stocks To Own For 2015: Landstar System Inc. (LSTR)
Landstar System, Inc. operates as a non-asset based provider of freight transportation services and supply chain solutions. It operates in two segments, Transportation Logistics and Insurance. The Transportation Logistics segment provides transportation services, which include truckload and less-than-truckload transportation, rail intermodal, air cargo, ocean cargo, expedited ground and air delivery of time-critical freight, heavy-haul/specialized, U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico cross-border, project cargo, and customs brokerage. It also provides supply chain solutions that comprise integrated multi-modal solutions, outsourced logistics, supply chain engineering, and warehousing, as well as delivers supply chain solutions through a software-as-a-service model. This segment primarily serves automotive products, paper, lumber, metals, chemicals, foodstuffs, heavy machinery, retail, electronics, ammunition and explosives, and military hardware industries, as well as provides tra nsportation services to other transportation companies, including logistics and less-than-truckload service providers. The Insurance segment provides risk and claims management services; reinsures certain risks of the company?s BCO independent contractors; and offers property and casualty insurance. The company provides services to shippers principally in the United States and Canada; between the United States, Canada, and Mexico; and internationally. Landstar System, Inc. was founded in 1968 and is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida.
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