With shares of Costco (NASDAQ:COST) trading around $113, is COST an OUTPERFORM, WAIT AND SEE, or STAY AWAY? Let�� analyze the stock with the relevant sections of our CHEAT SHEET investing framework:
T = Trends for a Stock’s Movement
Costco is engaged in the operation of membership warehouses in the United States and Puerto Rico, Canada, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Japan, Australia, and through majority-owned subsidiaries in Taiwan and Korea. The company�� depots receive container-based shipments from manufacturers and reallocate these goods for shipment to its individual warehouses, generally in less than 24 hours. Costco�� typical warehouse format averages approximately 143,000 square feet, where many products are offered for sale in case, carton, or multiple-pack quantities only.
Costco said its fiscal second-quarter profit fell 15 percent as lower international profit, weaker foreign-exchange rates, and poor results from non-foods merchandise categories weighed on the bottom line.�The company said the first four weeks of the quarter represented the majority of its earnings underperformance. Shares fell 2 percent in early trading.�Costco blamed the lower earnings on weaker sales and profits from certain non-foods merchandise categories, particularly during the four-week holiday season; weaker profits on its fresh foods business; and lower international profits, resulting from the weakening of foreign exchange rates.�The company�� sales growth has slowed recently, in contrast to other discount clubs, which have been a bright spot in retail as shoppers seek to save money by buying in bulk.
10 Best Diversified Bank Stocks To Watch For 2015: Speedway Motorsports Inc.(TRK)
Speedway Motorsports, Inc., through its subsidiaries, operates as a promoter, marketer, and sponsor of motor sports activities in the United States. The company principally owns and operates Atlanta Motor Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway, Charlotte Motor Speedway, Infineon Raceway, Kentucky Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, New Hampshire Motor Speedway, and Texas Motor Speedway racing facilities. The company also provides souvenir merchandising services; food, beverage, and hospitality catering services; and radio programming, production, and distribution services. In addition, it develops electronic media promotional programming; and distributes wholesale and retail racing, and other sports related souvenir merchandise and apparel. Further, the company manufactures and distributes smaller-scale, modified racing cars and parts; and produces and sells an environmentally-friendly micro-lubricant. Speedway Motorsports has a joint venture with International Speedway Corporat ion to produce, market, and sell licensed motorsports collectible and consumer products, primarily trackside event souvenir merchandising. The company was founded in 1959 and is based in Concord, North Carolina.
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 Speedway Motorsports (NYSE: TRK ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below.
10 Best Diversified Bank Stocks To Watch For 2015: Adams Golf Inc.(ADGF)
Adams Golf, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, designs, assembles, markets, and distributes golf clubs for various skill levels primarily in the United States and internationally. Its products comprise Speedline Fast 12 drivers, Fast 12 LS drivers, Speedline Fast 12 fairway woods, Idea a12 OS irons and hybrids, Idea a12 hybrids, Idea Pro a12 irons and hybrids, Idea Tech V3 irons and hybrids, Redline irons, Idea a7 and a7 OS irons and hybrids, and Speedline 9088 UL drivers. It also develops products under the Yes! Putters, Women's Golf Unlimited, Lady Fairway, and Square 2 brands. In addition, it offers a range of golf bags, hats, and other accessories. The company sells its products to on- and off- course golf shops, sporting goods retailers, and mass merchants, as well as to international distributors. Adams Golf, Inc. was founded in 1987 and is based in Plano, Texas.
Advisors' Opinion: - [By Geoff Gannon]
Adams Golf (ADGF) was a net-net. It got bought out by Adidas. By the way, it�� not the only net-net to get bought out this year. Swank (SNKI) was also a net-net that looks like it�� going to be bought out. Last I heard, they received an alternative proposal during their ��o shop��period and haven�� acted on it. The Ben Graham: Net-Net Newsletter�� model portfolio doesn�� own either stock. Though we do own another net-net where a company in the same industry bought a block of shares. Who knows what that means. But clearly net-nets sometimes attract control buyers.
Best Paper Companies To Watch For 2015: IMS Health Holdings Inc (IMS)
IMS Health Holdings, Inc., incorporated on October 23, 2009, is a global information and technology services company providing clients in the healthcare industry with comprehensive solutions to measure and improve their performance. It has collections of healthcare information in the world, spanning sales, prescription and promotional data, medical claims, electronic medical records and social media. Its scaled and data set, containing over 10 petabytes of data, includes over 85% of the world�� prescriptions by sales revenue and approximately 400 million comprehensive, longitudinal, anonymous patient records. It serves healthcare organizations and decision makers around the world, spanning the breadth of life science companies, including pharmaceutical, biotechnology, consumer health and medical device manufacturers, as well as distributors, providers, payers, government agencies, policymakers, researchers and the financial community.
The Company uses healthcare-specific global information technology (IT) infrastructure to process data from over 45 billion healthcare transactions annually and to collect data from over 780,000 fragmented feeds globally, which it organize in a structured fashion using methodologies. Its intelligent cloud, IMS One opens its global IT infrastructure to its clients and provides the ability to perform business analytics in the cloud with large amounts of complex data. Its principal offerings include National information offerings; Sub-national information offerings; Commercial services; Real-World Evidence (RWE) solutions; Commercial technology solutions, and Clinical solutions.
The Company�� national offerings includes services in more than 70 countries that provide consistent country level performance metrics related to sales of pharmaceutical products, prescribing trends, medical treatment and promotional activity across multiple channels including retail, hospital and mail order. Its sub-national offerings includes services in more than 50 ! countries that provide a consistent measurement of sales or prescribing activity at the regional, zip code and individual prescriber level. The Company provides a set of strategic, analytic and support services to help the commercial operations of life sciences companies transform their commercial models. It integrate information from medical claims, prescriptions, electronic medical records, biomarkers and government statistics into anonymous, longitudinal patient journeys that provide detailed views of treatment patterns, disease progression, therapeutic switching and concomitant diseases and treatments.
The Company provides a range of hosted and cloud-based applications and associated implementation services. The applications, hosted on IMS One, support a range of commercial processes including multi-channel marketing, customer relationship management (CRM), performance management, incentive compensation, territory alignment, roster management and call planning. It helps life sciences companies design and execute clinical trials, and for payers and providers, it enables risk-sharing, pay-for-performance and population health management.
Advisors' Opinion: - [By MONEYMORNING.COM]
Now then, as much as we like several companies in this space, we think investors would do well to take a close look at IMS Health Holdings Inc. (NYSE: IMS).
- [By Jayson Derrick]
After pricing its IPO at $20, shares of IMS Health (NYSE: IMS) began trading for the first time at $22.18, traded as high as $23.69 before closing the day at $23.00, up 15.00 percent.
- [By Jake L'Ecuyer]
IMS Health Holdings (NYSE: IMS) shares were also up, gaining 17.40 percent to $23.45 in their debut on the NYSE.
Equities Trading DOWN
Shares of Halozyme Therapeutics (NASDAQ: HALO) were down 25.40 percent to $8.65 after the company announced the temporary halt of Phase 2 trial enrollment.
10 Best Diversified Bank Stocks To Watch For 2015: Xilinx Inc (XLNX)
Xilinx, Inc. (Xilinx), incorporated on February 5, 1984, designs, develops and markets programmable platforms. These programmable platforms have a number of components, including integrated circuits (ICs) in the form of programmable logic devices (PLDs), including Extensible Processing Platforms (EPPs); software design tools to program the PLDs; targeted reference designs; printed circuit boards, and intellectual property (IP), which consists of Xilinx and various third-party verification and IP cores. In addition to its programmable platforms, Xilinx provides design services, customer training, field engineering and technical support. The Company�� PLDs include field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs) that its customers program to perform logic functions, and EPPs. Xilinx�� products are offered to electronic equipment manufacturers in end markets, such as wired and wireless communications, industrial, scientific and medical, aerospace and defense, audio, video and broadcast, consumer, automotive and data processing. The Company sells its products globally through independent domestic and foreign distributors and through direct sales to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) by a network of independent sales representative firms and by a direct sales management organization. In January 2011, the Company acquired AutoESL Design Technologies, Inc. In August 2012, the Company acquired embedded Linux solutions provider PetaLogix.
Product Families
The 7 series devices that comprise the Company�� 28-nanometer (nm) product families are fabricated on a high-K metal gate 28-nm process technology. These devices are based on an architecture, which enables design and IP portability and re-use across all families, as well as provides designers the ability to achieve the appropriate combination of I/O support, performance, feature quantities, packaging and power consumption to address a range of applications. The 7 series devices consist of! three families: Virtex-7 FPGA, Kintex-7 FPGAs and Artix-7 FPGAs. The Zynq-7000 family is the family of Xilinx EPPs. The Virtex-6 FPGA family consists of 13 devices and is the sixth generation in the Virtex series of FPGAs.
Virtex-6 FPGAs are fabricated on a high-performance, 40-nm process technology. There are three Virtex-6 families: Virtex-6 LXT FPGAs, Virtex-6 SXT FPGAs and Virtex-6 HXT FPGAs. The Spartan-6 family is the PLD industry�� 45-nm high-volume FPGA family, consisting of 11 devices in two product families: Spartan-6 LX FPGAs and Spartan-6 LXT FPGAs. The Virtex-5 FPGA family consists of 26 devices in five product families: Virtex-5 LX FPGAs for logic-intensive designs, Virtex-5 LXT FPGAs for high-performance logic with serial connectivity, Virtex-5 SXT FPGAs for high-performance DSP with serial connectivity, Virtex-5 FXT FPGAs for embedded processing with serial connectivity and Virtex-5 TXT FPGAs for high-bandwidth serial connectivity. Prior generation Virtex families include Virtex-4, Virtex-II Pro, Virtex-II, Virtex-E and the original Virtex family. Spartan family FPGAs include 90-nm Spartan-3 FPGAs, the Spartan-3E family and the Spartan-3A family. Prior generation Spartan families include Spartan-IIE, Spartan-II, Spartan XL and the original Spartan family.
Design Platforms and Services
The Company offers three types of programmable platforms. The Base Platform is the delivery vehicle for all of its new silicon offerings used to develop and run customer-specific software applications and hardware designs. The Base Platform consists of FPGA silicon; Integrated Software Environment (ISE) Design Suite design environment; integration support of optional third-party synthesis, simulation, and signal integrity tools; reference designs; development boards and IP. The Domain-Specific Platform targets one of the three primary Xilinx FPGA user profiles: the embedded processing developer; the DSP developer; or the logic/connectivity developer. The Market-S! pecific P! latform enables software or hardware developers to build and run their specific application or solution. Built for specific markets, such as automotive, consumer, aerospace and defense, communications, audio, video and broadcast, industrial, or scientific and medical, the Market-Specific Platform integrates both the Base and Domain-Specific Platforms.
During April 2012, Xilinx introduced the Vivado Design Suite. Vivado supports Xilinx 7 series FPGAs and Zynq EPPs. Xilinx and various third parties offer hundreds of no charge and fee-bearing IP core licenses covering Ethernet, memory controllers Interlaken and PCIe interface, as well as domain-specific IP in the areas of embedded, DSP and connectivity, and market-specific IP cores. The Company also offers development kits, including hardware, design tools, IP and reference designs. Xilinx offers a range of configuration products, including one-time programmable and in-system programmable storage devices to configure Xilinx FPGAs. These programmable read-only memory (PROM) products support all of the Company�� FPGA devices. Xilinx and certain third parties have developed and offer a ecosystem of IP, boards, tools, services and support through the Xilinx alliance program. Xilinx also works with these third parties to promote its programmable platforms through third-party tools, IP, software, boards and design services. Xilinx engineering services provide customers with engineering, ranging from hands-on training to full design creation and implementation.
The Company competes with Altera Corporation, Lattice Semiconductor Corporation and Microsemi Corporation.
Advisors' Opinion: - [By kcpl]
Altera�(ALTR)'s performance has been weak as shares are down almost 9% so far this year as compared to peers such as Xilinx (XLNX) and Lattice Semiconductor.
- [By Monica Gerson]
Xilinx (NASDAQ: XLNX) is estimated to post its Q2 earnings at $0.53 per share on revenue of $588.28 million.
Universal Forest Products (NASDAQ: UFPI) is projected to post its Q3 earnings at $0.54 per share on revenue of $625.77 million.
- [By Wallace Witkowski]
Xilinx Inc. (XLNX) �shares dropped 4.3% to $44.90 on moderate volume after the company reported fiscal second-quarter earnings.
10 Best Diversified Bank Stocks To Watch For 2015: Cambridge Bancorp (CATC)
Cambridge Bancorp, incorporated on December 23, 1982, is a state chartered, federally bank holding company in Cambridge. The Company�� reportable operating segment consists of commercial banking, consumer banking, and trust and investment management services. Cambridge Trust Company (the Bank) is a subsidiary of the Company. The Bank offers a range of commercial and consumer banking services through its network of 12 service banking offices in Massachusetts. The Bank is engaged in the business of attracting deposits from the public and investing those deposits. The Bank invests those funds in various types of loans, including residential and commercial real estate, and a variety of commercial and consumer loans. The Bank also invests its deposits and borrowed funds in investment securities and has three wholly owned Massachusetts Security Corporations, CTC Security Corporation, CTC Security Corporation II and CTC Security Corporation III.
Lending activities
The Bank originates loans to businesses and individuals on both a collateralized and an uncollateralized basis. The Bank�� customer base is concentrated in eastern Massachusetts. The majority of loans to individuals are collateralized by residential real estate, marketable securities or other assets.
Investment activities
The Bank invests in United States government sponsored enterprise (GSE) obligations, mortgage-backed securities, mutual funds and municipal securities. As a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) of Boston (the FHLB Boston), the Bank is required to invest in stock of the FHLB Boston in an amount based upon itsadvances from the FHLB Boston.
Sources of Funds
The Bank attracts deposits, such as demand deposits (non-interest bearing), interest bearing checking, money market, savings, certificates of deposit under $100,000 and certificates of deposit $100,000 or greater. Its short term borrowings consist of treasury, tax and loan notes, and FHLB Bost! on overnight borrowings.
Advisors' Opinion: - [By CRWE]
Today, CATC has shed (-0.26%) down -0.10 at $38.90 with 500 shares in play thus far (ref. google finance Delayed: 11:24AM EDT July 22, 2013), but don�� let this get you down.
Cambridge Bancorp previously reported unaudited net income of $3,475,000 for the second quarter of 2013 compared to $3,451,000 for the same quarter in 2012. The slight increase in earnings was primarily attributable to growth in noninterest income, offset by a decrease in net interest income. Diluted earnings per share were $0.89 for the second quarter of 2013, unchanged versus for the same quarter in 2012. For the six months ended June 30, 2013, unaudited net income was $6,806,000 compared to $6,736,000 for the first half of 2012. Diluted earnings per share were $1.75 for the first six months of 2013 versus $1.74 for the same period in 2012.
10 Best Diversified Bank Stocks To Watch For 2015: Ply Gem Holdings Inc (PGEM)
Ply Gem Holdings, Inc. (Ply Gem Holdings), incorporated on January 23, 2004, is a manufacturer of residential exterior building products in North America. The Company operates in two segments: Siding, Fencing, and Stone and Windows and Doors. These two segments produce a product line of vinyl siding, designer accents, cellular polyvinyl chloride (PVC) trim, vinyl fencing, vinyl and composite railing, stone veneer and vinyl windows and doors used in both new construction and home repair and remodeling in the United States and Western Canada. It also manufactures vinyl and aluminum soffit and siding accessories, aluminum trim coil, wood windows, aluminum windows, vinyl and aluminum-clad windows and steel and fiberglass doors, enabling it to bundle complementary and color-matched products and accessories with its core products. The Company�� subsidiaries includes including Ply Gem Industries, MWM Holding, AWC Holding Company, MHE, and Pacific Windows. On July 30, 2012, Ply Gem acquired substantially all of the assets of Greendeck Products, LLC.
Siding, Fencing, and Stone Segment
In the Siding, Fencing, and Stone segment, its principal products include vinyl siding and skirting, vinyl and aluminum soffit, aluminum trim coil, J-channels, wide crown molding, window and door trim, F-channels, H-molds, fascia, undersill trims, outside/inside corner posts, rain removal systems, injection molded designer accents, such as shakes, shingles, scallops, shutters, vents and mounts, vinyl fence, vinyl and composite railing, and stone veneer. It sells its siding and accessories under its Variform, Napco, Mastic Home Exteriors, and Cellwood brand names and under the Georgia-Pacific brand name through a private label program. It also sells its Providence line of vinyl siding and accessories to Lowe�� under its Durabuilt private label brand name. Its vinyl and vinyl-composite fencing and railing products are sold under its Kroy and Kroy Express brand names. Ply Gem Holdings stone veneer produ! cts are sold under its United Stone Veneer brand name.
The Company sells the siding and accessories to specialty distributors (one-step distribution) and to wholesale distributors (two-step distribution). Its specialty distributors sell directly to remodeling contractors and builders. Its wholesale distributors sell to retail home centers and lumberyards who, in turn, sell to remodeling contractors, builders and consumers. In the specialty channel, it has developed a network of approximately 800 independent distributors, serving over 22,000 contractors and builders nationwide.
Windows and Doors Segment
In the Windows and Doors segment, its principal products include vinyl, aluminum, wood and clad-wood windows and patio doors, and steel, wood, and fiberglass entry doors that serve both the new home construction and the repair and remodeling sectors in the United States and Western Canada. Its products in its Windows and Doors segment are sold under the Ply Gem Windows, Great Lakes Mastic by Ply Gem, and Ply Gem Canada brands.
The Company competes with Alsco, Gentek, U.S. Fence, Homeland, Westech, Bufftech, Royal, Azek., Eldorado Stone, Coronado Stone, Jeld-Wen, Simonton, Pella and Andersen, MI Home Products, Atrium, Weathershield, Milgard, Jeld-Wen, Gienow, All Weather and Loewen.
Advisors' Opinion: - [By Matt Jarzemsky]
Installed Building Products��debut follows mixed performance from shares of some newly public building-products companies. Through Tuesday, siding manufacturer Ply Gem Holdings Inc.(PGEM)�� shares were down 39% from the offer price in its $381 May debut. Wood-products maker Boise Cascade Co.(BCC) was up 46% from its $284 million February IPO.
10 Best Diversified Bank Stocks To Watch For 2015: Textura Corp (TXTR)
Textura Corporation, incorporated on September 27, 2007, is a provider of on-demand business collaboration software to the commercial construction industry. The Company�� solutions are focused on facilitating collaboration between owners/developers, general contractors and subcontractors. The Company offers PlanSwift, a take-off and estimating solution used in preparing construction bids, and Contractor Default Claims Management, which supports the process of documenting a subcontractor default insurance claim. Each of its collaboration solutions was designed from inception as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution with on-demand architecture. The Company collaboration solutions each use a single code base and it do not customize its solutions for any of the Company�� clients. In December 2013, Textura Corp closed its acquisition of LATISTA Technologies Inc, the provider of mobile-enabled solutions for construction project collaboration.
The Company�� collaboration solutions offer functionality, data sharing and exchange capabilities, and workflow tools that support several business processes at various stages of the construction project lifecycle, which include Construction Payment Management (CPM) enables the generation, collection, review and routing of invoices and the necessary supporting documentation and legal documents, and initiation of payment of invoices; Submittal Exchange enables the collection, review and routing of project documents; GradeBeam supports the process of obtaining construction bids, including identifying potential bidders, issuing invitations-to-bid and tracking bidding intent; Pre-Qualification Management (PQM) supports contractor risk assessment and qualification, and Greengrade facilitates the management of environmental certification processes. The Company�� on-demand business collaboration software solutions address the several challenges associated with the traditional paper-based and personnel-intensive manual approaches or with technology solut! ions not designed for collaborative processes, and support many of the trends occurring within the commercial construction industry.
Advisors' Opinion: - [By Jake L'Ecuyer]
Equities Trading DOWN
Shares of Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) were down 11.59 percent to $64.92 after Macquarie downgraded the stock from Neutral to Underperform. Textura (NYSE: TXTR) tumbled 5.24 percent to $29.66. Textura shares tumbled 17.06 percent yesterday after Citron Research issued a scathing report on the company midway through the morning Thursday.
- [By Jon C. Ogg]
Textura Corp. (NYSE: TXTR) was reiterated as Outperform along with a $50 price target at Credit Suisse. The firm said that a negative report from Citron on the company last week that knocked about 20% of its value off has created as buying opportunity. Credit Suisse believes the report is untrue. It said the report was full of profanity and that it sees no merits to any of the work, with the report alluding to incorrect innuendos and false assumptions that suggested management misled investors. After shares saw a more than a 5% gain to $29.54 on Friday, the post-IPO range is $19.68 to $47.25.
- [By Dan Caplinger]
It took four days, but Dow 16,000 finally stuck until the close, with the Dow Jones Industrials (DJINDICES: ^DJI ) finishing the day up 109 points. Particularly strong showings from the financial contingent of the Dow 30 pushed the average up, but their gains were small compared to the larger jumps that Sprint (NYSE: S ) , Textura (NYSE: TXTR ) , and Williams-Sonoma (NYSE: WSM ) saw. Let's look at why these three companies did so well today, to see if we can draw hints about other potential winners down the road.
- [By David Zeiler]
6. Textura Corp. (NYSE: TXTR): Textura creates and sells business collaboration software to the commercial construction industry. TXTR went public June 7 at $15 a share and rose 39.6% its first day. The stock currently trades at $40.080, for an increase of 167.2%.
10 Best Diversified Bank Stocks To Watch For 2015: AcelRx Pharmaceuticals Inc.(ACRX)
AcelRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company, focuses on the development and commercialization of therapies for the treatment of acute and breakthrough pain in the United States. The company develops ARX-01, a Sufentanil NanoTab PCA system, which completed Phase II clinical trial for acute post-operative pain. The Sufentanil NanoTab PCA system consists of sufentanil, a high therapeutic index opioid; NanoTabs, a non-invasive sublingual dosage form; and a handheld PCA device that enables simple patient-controlled delivery of NanoTabs in the hospital setting and eliminates the risk of programming errors. Its products also include ARX-02, a Sufentanil NanoTab BTP Management System that completed Phase II clinical trial for the treatment of cancer breakthrough pain; and ARX-03, a Sufentanil/Triazolam NanoTab, which completed Phase II clinical trial to provide mild sedation, anxiety reduction, and pain relief for patients undergoing painful procedures in a ph ysician?s office. The company was formerly known as SuRx, Inc. and changed its name to AcelRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in August 2006. AcelRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Redwood, California.
Advisors' Opinion: - [By Sean Williams]
The good
Heralding the charge higher was AcelRx Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ACRX ) which advanced 18% on the week after disclosing on Tuesday that its post-operative pain management system, Sufentanil NanoTab PCA, met its primary endpoint in late-stage trials and reconfirmed all previous late-stage study results. This data is strong enough for AcelRx to seek approval from the Food and Drug Administration with a new drug application filing expected next quarter. I'd be cautious with AcelRx moving forward, as the possibility of an FDA rejection for opioid-based treatments is always a possibility.
- [By Sean Williams]
AcelRx Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ACRX ) received a nice boost from Jefferies this week, after an analyst there initiated coverage on the company with a "buy" rating and a price target of $8, implying about 33% upside from Friday's close. The covering analyst, Corey Davis, is forecasting that AcelRx's post-operative pain management drug/system, sufentanil NanoTab PCA -- which allows patients to give themselves a pre-set dose of sufentanil under their tongue instead of intravenously -- will be approved by the FDA in 2014 and become up to a $400 million drug in the United States. AcelRx's delivery system does drastically reduce the potential for infections and dosing errors, but I always remain concerned when pain medication systems go before the FDA. In essence, I'd still tread cautiously around this story.
- [By Roberto Pedone]
One stock that's starting to trend within range of triggering a near-term breakout trade is AcelRx Pharmaceuticals (ACRX), which is involved in the development and commercialization of therapies for the treatment of acute and breakthrough pain. This stock has been on fire so far in 2013, with shares up big by 150%.
If you take a look at the chart for AcelRx Pharmaceuticals, you'll notice that this stock has been uptrending modestly for the last month and change, with shares moving higher from its low of $8.94 to its recent high of $11.52 a share. During that uptrend, shares of ACRX have been making mostly higher lows and higher highs, which is bullish technical price action. That move has now pushed shares of ACRX within range of triggering a near-term breakout trade.
Traders should now look for long-biased trades in ACRX if it manages to break out above some near-term overhead resistance levels at $11.36 to $11.52 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 action of 635,439 shares. If that breakout hits soon, then ACRX will set up to re-test or possibly take out its next major overhead resistance levels at $12.50 to its all-time high at $13.50 a share. Any high-volume move above $13.50 will then give ACRX a chance to tag $15 a share.
Traders can look to buy ACRX off any weakness to anticipate that breakout and simply use a stop that sits right below some key near-term support levels at $10.35 to $10 a share. One can also buy ACRX off strength once it takes out those breakout levels with volume and then simply use a stop that sits a comfortable percentage from your entry point.
10 Best Diversified Bank Stocks To Watch For 2015: Mueller Water Products Inc (MWA)
Mueller Water Products, Inc., incorporated on September 22, 2005, is a manufacturer and marketer of products and services used in the transmission, distribution and measurement of water. The Company�� product portfolio includes engineered valves, fire hydrants, pipe fittings, water meters, leak detection and pipe condition assessment which are used by municipalities, as well as the residential and non-residential construction industries. The Company operates in two segments: Mueller Co. and Anvil. Mueller Co. The Company�� valve or fire hydrant products are specified for use in the 100 metropolitan areas in the United States.
Mueller Co.
Mueller Co. manufactures valves for water and gas systems, including iron gate, butterfly, tapping, check, plug and ball valves, as well as dry-barrel and wet-barrel fire hydrants and a of pipe repair products, such as clamps and couplings used to repair leaks. The Company offers residential and commercial metering products and systems and leak detection and pipe condition assessment products and services. Mueller Co. products are sold through waterworks distributors.
The Company�� fire hydrants consist of an upper barrel and nozzle section and a lower barrel and valve section that connects to a water main. In dry-barrel hydrants, the valve connecting the barrel of the hydrant to the water main is located below ground at or below the frost line, which keeps the hydrant upper barrel dry. It sells dry-barrel fire hydrants with the Mueller and U.S. Pipe Valve and Hydrant brand names in the United States and the Mueller and Canada Valve brand names in Canada. The Company also makes wet-barrel hydrants, where the valves are located in the hydrant nozzles and the barrel contains water at all times. It also makes wet-barrel hydrants, where the valves are located in the hydrant nozzles and the barrel contains water at all times.
Mueller Co. manufactures a variety of intelligent water technology products under the Mue! ller Systems and Hersey Meters brand names that are designed to help water providers accurately measure water usage. These products include water meters, advanced metering infrastructure systems and automated meter reading products, have the capability to measure water usage ranging from small residential flows to large commercial and industrial applications.
Mueller Co. offers leak detection and pipe condition assessment products and services under the Echologics brand name. Other products include pipe repair products, such as clamps and couplings used to repair leaks and municipal castings, such as manhole covers and street drain grates. It sells these products under the Mueller and Jones brand names.
The Company competes with McWane, Inc., American Cast Iron Pipe Company, The Ford Meter Box Company, Inc., A.Y. McDonald Mfg, Sensus, Neptune Technology Group, Inc., Badger Meter, Inc., Aclara LLC and Itron, Inc.
Anvil
Anvil manufactures and sources a range of products, includes fittings, couplings, hangers, valves and related products for use in many non-residential constructions for HVAC, fire protection, energy and oil and gas applications. Anvil's products are sold through distributors who then sell the products to a variety of end users. These distributors are serviced primarily through Anvil's distribution centers.
Fittings and Couplings manufactures threaded and grooved pipe fittings and couplings. Pipe fittings and couplings join two pieces of pipe together. The five categories of pipe fittings and couplings are cast iron fittings, malleable iron fittings and unions, grooved fittings, couplings and valves, threaded steel pipe coupling and nipples. Hangers, manufacture an array of pipe hangers and supports. Standard pipe hangers and supports are used in fire protection sprinkler systems and HVAC applications where the objective is to provide rigid support from the building structure.
The Company competes with Ward Man! ufacturin! g L.L.C., malleable iron fittings, Victaulic Company, Tyco International Ltd., ERICO International Corporation, Cooper Industries plc and Carpenter & Paterson, Inc.
Advisors' Opinion: - [By Travis Hoium]
What: Shares of Mueller Water Products (NYSE: MWA ) jumped as much as 17% today after the company released earnings.
So what: Fiscal-second-quarter revenue jumped 12.6% to $283.1 million and net income was $6.2 million, or $0.05 per share. Analysts only expected revenue to be $270.8 million and earnings of $0.02 per share so this was well ahead of estimates. �
10 Best Diversified Bank Stocks To Watch For 2015: 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 CRWE]
Heartland Express, Inc. (Nasdaq:HTLD) reported that on Wednesday, May 30, 2012, members of its management team will participate in the 2012 KeyBanc Capital Markets Industrial, Automotive and Transportation conference.
- [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.
- [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.
