Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
What: Shares of MGIC Investment (NYSE: MTG ) , a mortgage insurance company to lenders and government-sponsored entities, jumped as much as 15% after handily topping Wall Street's earnings estimates in the second-quarter.
So what: For the quarter, revenue fell 18% to $263.9 million, but the company surprised Wall Street by reporting a profit of $0.04 per share. This easily reversed its year-ago loss of $1.36 per share and trumped the Street's forecast of a $0.15 per-share loss. Furthermore, new insurance written jumped 36% to $8 billion from the year-ago period while delinquent loans, excluding bulk loans, dropped to just 10.16% from 12.51% at this time last year.
Now what: The big catalyst for MGIC has been an improving housing market where low lending rates have spurred homebuyers to once again take the plunge. Years removed from the financial crisis, credit quality has also improved for many consumers, meaning a decline in the number of delinquent loans. However, with MGIC still only slowly removing itself from bad legacy loans and interest rates already beginning to rise, what benefits it sees from an uptick in new business underwritten now may be very short-lived. Let's not forget we're talking about a company that hasn't turned in an annual profit since 2006 and recently diluted its shareholders in a big way in order to raise cash and reduce its risk-to-capital ratio, which its own CEO, Curt Culver, suggested would get worse before it gets better. Despite today's surprise profit, this is a company I'd suggest staying far away from.
Top 5 Industrial Conglomerate Stocks To Watch For 2015: Equinix Inc.(EQIX)
Equinix, Inc. provides data center services for the protection and connection of information assets to enterprises, financial service companies, and content and network service providers worldwide. It connects businesses with partners and customers through a platform of high performance data centers, containing dynamic ecosystems and the broadest choice of networks. The company operates International Business Exchange (IBX) centers, or IBX data centers, across 38 markets in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific. Equinix offers data center services, including premium data center co-location; interconnection and exchange services; network connectivity; business continuity; and outsourced IT infrastructure services. The company connects approximately 4,000 enterprises, cloud, digital content, and financial companies, including 680 network service providers to help them grow their businesses, improve application performance, and protect their vita l digital assets. It markets its products and services through direct sales force and channel marketing program. Equinix was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Redwood City, California.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Paulo Santos]
Using Equinix (EQIX) and Rackspace Hosting (RAX) as comparables, I was pumped up. CONE was projecting $135 million in EBITDA for 2013 (at the midpoint of guidance). On a $445 million market capitalization with $277.7 million in net debt, it traded at an EV/EBITDA of just 5.4 times. Compare that to EQIX at 13 times or RAX at 15 times. This was a bargain and growing revenues at a 18% clip year-on-year, too, above EQIX's 10% or RAX's 15%.
- [By Steve Sears]
New stocks in what Goldman calls the “Hedge Fund VIP list,”�include Actavis (ACT), Baidu (BIDU), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B), Crown Castle International (CCI), Entergy Louisiana (ELB), �Equinix (EQIX), Facebook (FB), Fleetcor Technologies (FLT), W.R. Grace (GRA), MetLife (MET), Macquarie Infrastructure (MIC), Micron (MU), Time Warner Cable (TWC), and Time Warner (TWX).
- [By Lee Jackson]
Equinix Inc. (NASDAQ: EQIX) is expected to be one of the companies in the space looking to employ a merger or acquisition strategy in the near future. The company announced last Friday that it has opened its second International Business Exchange (:IBX) in Rio de Janeiro, based on the platform provided by ALOG Data Centers of Brazil. This new Rio de Janeiro data center, popularly known as RJ2, will enable Equinix to meet the growing demand for data center services in the region. The consensus price target for this top stock is $230.50. Equinix closed Thursday down almost 4% at $166.61.
- [By Holly LaFon]
Equinix, Inc. (EQIX) is a leading Internet exchange service provider, serving communications, content and enterprise customers in state-of-the-art data centers. Equinix also offers interconnection services to customers seeking to connect directly with other Equinix customers. We believe that this "tethering" of customers in a network neutral environment creates important competitive barriers that distinguish Equinix from other data center business models. Last year, management indicated its intention to convert the company to a REIT. Shares were pressured this quarter, as the market grew concerned about the company's ability to make this REIT conversion. In addition, REIT shares themselves were under pressure on concerns that rising interest rates would depress their relative valuations in the stock market. We believe that Equinix remains an attractive investment, whether or not a REIT conversion eventually occurs.
Best Quality Stocks To Buy Right Now: dELIA*s Inc.(DLIA)
dELiA*s, Inc. operates as a direct marketing and retail company in the United States. It offers a collection of apparel, dresses, swimwear, roomwear, footwear, outerwear, and key accessories primarily for teenage girls. The company sells its products through direct mail catalogs, Websites, and mall-based specialty retail stores under the dELiA*s brand name. As of January 29, 2011, it operated 114 dELiA*s retail stores. The company also markets and sells branded junior apparel, dresses, accessories, swimwear, footwear and outerwear primarily to young women through catalogs and Internet under the Alloy brand name. dELiA*s, Inc. was founded in 1997 and based in New York, New York.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Eric Volkman]
dELIA*s (NASDAQ: DLIA ) is now a lighter company following the divestment of one of its brand lines. The company announced that it has sold its Alloy subsidiary to HRSH Acquisitions, which is conducting business under the name Alloy Apparel and Accessories. dELIA*s was paid $3.7 million in cash for the unit, and the buyer will assume roughly $3.1 million in liabilities.
Best Quality Stocks To Buy Right Now: Monster Worldwide Inc. (MWW)
Monster Worldwide, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides online and mobile employment solutions worldwide. It offers customized solutions and technologies across a range of public and private sectors. The company utilizes the Web, mobile apps, and social media to connect employers with job seekers at all levels in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Its services and solutions include searchable job postings, resume database access, recruitment media solutions, and other career-related content. Monster Worldwide, Inc. also facilitates jobseekers to search job postings and post their resumes on its career Websites; and employers and human resources companies to advertise jobs, search its resume database, and utilize career site hosting and other services, such as recruitment media. The company provides solutions and technology to simplify the hiring process for employers; and work-related content, services, and advice for job seekers. It serves individuals, small and me dium-sized organizations, enterprise organizations, and educational institutions; and federal, state, and local government agencies through a field sales force, telephone sales force, and an online service. The company was founded in 1967 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Jeff Reeves]
Unlike blanket sites like HotJobs from Yahoo (YHOO) or Monster Worldwide (MWW), Dice is compartmentalized with properties that includes tech portal Slashdot, oil and gas site Rigzone and finance site eFinancial Careers and medical career site Health Callings.
- [By Ben Rooney]
51job (JOBS), an online job search website similar to Monster.com (MWW), has surged more 60% this year.
But there is one notable Chinese dot-com stock that's sitting out the big rally. Shares of Renren (RENN), the social network known as China's Facebook (FB, Fortune 500), are down 3% for the year.
- [By John Udovich]
Staffing 360 Solutions Inc. Having a consolidation strategy that is well suited for the highly fragmented temporary staffing industry, small cap Staffing 360 Solutions intends to become a major international publicly-held staffing organization with diversified staffing services by engaging in a targeted accretive acquisition strategy. Staffing 360 Solutions has already developed a significant pipeline of acquisition targets in the IT, financial, accounting, healthcare and banking industries. Moreover, its executive chairman Brendan Flood spent seven years at Hudson Global Inc (NASDAQ: HSON) in various roles in Europe and the United States, culminating with him leading the company's IPO and listing of its common stock on the Nasdaq National Market in 2003. During 2004 and 2005 he was the CFO/COO for Hudson North America (returning the business to profitability after several loss-making years) while�prior to the IPO, it should be noted that Hudson was part of what is now Monster Worldwide, Inc (NYSE: MWW). CEO Matt Briand also has 17 years of staffing industry experience from various recruitment, sales, management and executive roles. On Wednesday, Staffing 360 Solutions issued an updated forecast for the next three fiscal quarters is as follows: $24.1 million for the quarter ending May 31, 2014, $30.2 million for the quarter ending August 31, 2014, and $32.1 million for the quarter ending November 30, 2014. Staffing 360 Solutions has also recently completed the acquisition of�PeopleSERVE, which�provides IT professional and management consultants on a contract and direct hire basis to state and local government, multinational and regional businesses and entrepreneurial firms throughout the greater Boston area.�On Wednesday, Staffing 360 Solutions fell 0.50% to $1.99 (STAF has a 52 week trading range of $0.55 to $2.10 a share) for a market cap of $60.98 million plus the stock is down 0.5% since the start of the year, up 20.6% over the past year and up 165.3% ove
- [By Steve Symington]
What:�Shares of Monster Worldwide� (NYSE: MWW ) plunged more than 18% early Thursday after the company released weaker-than-expected first-quarter results.
Best Quality Stocks To Buy Right Now: LSB Industries Inc (LXU)
LSB Industries, Inc., incorporated on January 21, 1977, is a diversified holding company involved in manufacturing and marketing operations through its subsidiaries. The Company together with its wholly owned subsidiaries owns Chemical Business and Climate Control Business. Chemical Business manufactures and sells nitrogen-based chemical products produced from four facilities located in El Dorado, Arkansas; Cherokee, Alabama; Pryor, Oklahoma, and Baytown, Texas for the agricultural, industrial, and mining markets. Climate Control Business manufactures and sells a range of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) products in the niche markets the Company serves consisting of geothermal and water source heat pumps, hydronic fan coils, large custom air handlers, modular geothermal and other chillers and other related products used to control the environment in commercial/institutional and residential new building construction, renovation of existing buildings and replacement of existing systems. On October 31, 2012, Zena Energy LLC acquired working interests in certain natural gas properties located in Wyoming County, Pennsylvania, within the Marcellus Shale.
Chemical Business
The Company�� products in the Chemical Business include high purity and commercial grade anhydrous ammonia for industrial and agricultural applications, industrial and fertilizer grade ammonium nitrate (AN), urea ammonium nitrate (UAN), sulfuric acids, nitric acids in various concentrations, nitrogen solutions, diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) and various other products. The Company�� Chemical Business is a supplier to chemical and industrial companies. Its other products include anhydrous ammonia, ammonium nitrate ammonia solution for agricultural applications, blended and regular nitric acid, mixed nitrating acids, and industrial grade AN and solutions for the mining industry. The Company sells hese agricultural products to farmers, ranchers, fertilizer dealers and distributors primarily in the ran! ch land and grain production markets in the United States. The Company�� Chemical Business establishes long-term relationships with wholesale agricultural distributors and retailers and also sells directly to agricultural end-users through its network of wholesale and retail distribution centers. The Company�� Chemical Business manufactures and sells industrial acids and other chemical products primarily to the polyurethane, paper, fibers, fuel additives, emission control, and electronics industries. Its Chemical Business is also a niche market supplier of industrial and high purity ammonia for many specialty applications, including the reduction of air emissions from power plants.
Climate Control Business
The Company�� Climate Control Business manufactures and sells a range of standard and custom designed geothermal and water source heat pumps and hydronic fan coils, as well as custom air handlers and modular chiller systems, including modular geothermal chillers and simultaneous heating and cooling modules. These products are for use in commercial/institutional and residential HVAC systems. Its products are installed in some of the commercial/institutional developments in the United States, including the Prudential Tower, Rockefeller Plaza, Trump Tower, Time Warner Center and many others. In addition, it has presence in the lodging sector with installations in numerous Hyatt, Marriott, Four Seasons, Starwood, Ritz Carlton and Hilton hotels, among others. Its Climate Control Business manufactures and distributes its products from seven facilities located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The Company also provides geothermal heat pumps in residential and commercial/institutional applications. Its products are sold to the commercial/institutional markets, as well as single and multi-family residential new construction, renovation and replacements. The Company is a provider of hydronic fan coils targeting commercial and institutional markets. It manufactures its products in many! sizes an! d configurations, as required by the purchaser, to fit the space and capacity requirements of hotels, motels, schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, office buildings and other commercial/institutional or residential structures. The Climate Control Business sells its products primarily to mechanical contractors, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and distributors. Its Climate Control Business market includes commercial/institutional and residential new building construction, renovation of existing buildings and replacement of existing systems.
The Company competes with Agrium, CF Industries, Coffeyville Resources, Dyno Nobel, Koch, Potash Corporation, Yara International, Carrier, Trane, Nortek, McQuay, and Bosch.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By James E. Brumley]
With a market cap of only $893 million, it's not like LSB Industries, Inc. (NYSE:LXU) is the kind of company that garners a ton of attention. On the other hand, over the past several months, LXU has garnered far more attention than it likely wanted. The turbulence seems to be mostly behind it, however, and though the stock is now overbought thanks to the proverbial clearing of the dust, for long-haul investors, LSB Industries may be worth a closer look.
- [By Roberto Pedone]
LSB Industries (LXU) manufactures and sells geothermal and water source heat pumps and air handling products and chemical products. This stock closed up 4.6% at $33.72 in Friday's trading session.
Friday's Volume: 543,000
Three-Month Average Volume: 147,784
Volume % Change: 252%From a technical perspective, LXU ripped higher here right above some near-term support at $31.45 and back above its 50-day moving average of $32.51 with heavy upside volume. This stock also flirted with its 200-day moving average at $35.22, before closing just below that level at $33.72.
Traders should now look for long-biased trades in LXU as long as it's trending above its 50-day at $32.51 and then once it sustains a move or close above its 200-day at $35.22 to Friday's high of $36 with volume that's near or above 147,784 shares. If we get that move soon, then LXU will set up to re-test or possibly take out its next major overhead resistance levels at $40.37 to $42.79.
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