Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil both recently announced incredibly expensive, incredibly ambitious offshore projects in the Gulf of Mexico. The massive oil reserves that exist beneath the ocean floor are increasingly being targeted by the oil majors in their quest to increase production. In this video, Fool.com contributor Aimee Duffy looks at the company's behind three new offshore innovations that will make big oil's big challenge safer, and more efficient.
National Oilwell Varco is perhaps the safest investment in the energy sector due to its industry-dominating market share. This company is poised to profit in a big way; its customers are both increasing the number of new drilling rigs and updating aging fleets of offshore rigs. To help determine if it could be a good fit for your portfolio, you're invited to check out The Motley Fool's premium research report featuring in-depth analysis on whether NOV is a buy today. For instant access to this valuable investor's resource, simply click here now to claim your copy.
Top 5 Semiconductor Companies To Watch For 2015: Home Federal Bancorp Inc. of Louisiana(HFBL)
Home Federal Bancorp, Inc. of Louisiana operates as the holding company for Home Federal Bank, which provides financial services to individuals, corporate entities, and other organizations in northwest Louisiana. The company?s deposit products include savings accounts, NOW accounts, money market accounts, and certificate accounts, as well as passbook savings, certificates of deposit, and demand deposit accounts. Its loan portfolio comprises real estate loans, such as one to four family residential loans; commercial-real estate loans; multi-family residential loans; commercial business loans; land loans; construction loans; home equity and second mortgage loans; equity lines of credit; and consumer loans, including loans secured by deposit accounts, automobile loans, and other unsecured loans. The company also offers wealth management services. As of December 7, 2010, it operated through its main office, two branch offices, and one agency office in Shreveport, Louisiana. T he company is based in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Lauren Pollock]
Bank-holding company Banner Corp.(BANR) on Tuesday said it had agreed to buy Home Federal Bancorp Inc.(HFBL) (HOME) for $197 million in cash and stock. The deal, expected to close in the first quarter of 2014, will result in a combined company with about $5.2 billion in assets, making it the fourth-largest bank in the Pacific Northwest by assets, the companies said.
Hot Safest Stocks To Buy For 2014: Coty Inc (COTY)
Coty Inc., incorporated on January 20, 1995, is engaged in manufacturing, marketing and distribution of women�� and men�� fragrances, color cosmetics and skin and body care related products globally. The Company operates in three segments: Fragrances, Color Cosmetics and Skin & Body Care. The Company�� power brands consist of adidas, Calvin Klein, Chloe, Davidoff, Marc Jacobs, OPI, philosophy, Playboy, Rimmel and Sally Hansen. The Company sells products in each of its segments through retailers, including hypermarkets, supermarkets, independent and chain drug stores and pharmacies, upscale perfumeries, upscale and mid-tier department stores, nail salons, specialty retailers, duty-free shops and traditional food, drug and mass retailers.
The Company�� Fragrance products include a range of men�� and women�� products, with brands associated with fashion designers, celebrities and lifestyle brands. Color Cosmetics products include nail, lip, eye and other facial color products. Skin & Body Care products include shower gels, deodorants, skin care and sun treatment products.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Michael Lewis]
As happens all too often in the markets, an IPO has come out with lots of hype and, ultimately, little in the way of delivered expectations. Women's fragrance giant Coty (NYSE: COTY ) raised one of the largest IPOs in consumer product history last week, earning more than $1 billion. In the days prior, Wall Street played up the IPO in classic fashion -- citing large brand product awareness and celebrity endorsements as cause for investment. While Fools already know this is not a real reason to buy, apparently the market was either inundated with quick-flipping traders, or just unimpressed by the scent of Coty.
- [By Jake L'Ecuyer]
Coty (NYSE: COTY) was also up, gaining 7.36 percent to $14.73 after the company reported strong Q2 revenue and announced a $200 million share buyback program.
- [By Jon C. Ogg]
Before you consider this just to be a bit of IPO pondering, take a step back and understand that some of this list membership already has�filed to come public or actually has�made it public recently. Boise Cascade Co. (NYSE: BCC), CDW Corp. (NASDAQ: CDW), Coty Inc. (NYSE: COTY), Global Brass and Copper Holdings Inc. (NYSE: BRSS), Noodles & Company (NASDAQ: NDLS), Restoration Hardware Holdings Inc. (NYSE: RH), Sprouts Farmers Market Inc. (NASDAQ: SFM) and many others are on the list and have made it to the post-IPO stage in the stock market.
Hot Safest Stocks To Buy For 2014: Alpha Natural Resources inc. (ANR)
Alpha Natural Resources, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in producing, processing, and selling steam and metallurgical coal in the United States. The company has mining operations in Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Wyoming. As of December 31, 2011, it owned or leased approximately 4.7 billion tons of proven and probable coal reserves; and operated 145 mines in northern and central Appalachia and the Powder River basin. The company is also involved in repairing and reselling equipment and parts used in surface mining; manufacturing particulate scrubbers and filters for underground diesel engine applications; rebuilding underground mining equipment; and providing coal and environmental analysis, and degassing services. In addition, it engages in the sale of non-strategic assets, such as timber, gas, and oil rights, as well as the lease and sale of non-strategic surface properties and reserves; coal brokerage; and road construction business. The company serves electric utilities, steel and coke producers, industrial customers, and energy traders and brokers. Alpha Natural Resources, Inc. was founded in 2002 and is based in Abingdon, Virginia.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Ben Levisohn]
Coal stocks Alpha Natural Resources (ANR), Arch Coal (ACI) and�Peabody Energy�(BTU) are soaring today following China’s strong GDP reading and CSX Corp’s (CSX) solid earnings. FBR’s Mitesh Thakkar isn’t feeling too optimistic heading into earnings, however:
Bloomberg NewsHeading into the 2Q14 earnings season, we think the coal sector continues to be unloved with met coal prices close to bottom while steam coal prices are slightly cooling off after a strong rally during 1Q14. Similar to 1Q14, the two major challenges for coal producers remain weak met coal pricing and rail service limiting steam coal volume uptick. On the positive side, since 1Q14, we have gotten about 16 MTPA of global met coal production cuts, which are slowly flowing through the system but could take another three months to drive prices higher. On the other hand, rail service (BNSF and CSX) challenges continue, and we do not expect to see any major improvement through 2H14, which is later than expected during 1Q14, when some producers indicated 3Q14 normalization. We expect a majority of earnings calls to be focused on those two themes over and above company-specific issues (asset sales/divestitures, cost control, and balance sheet management). While still in the early days, we will look for any color on the coal industry’s preparedness for eventual implementation of GHG regulation announced by the EPA in early June. Within our coal coverage, we are lowering our 2014 EBITDA estimates by an average of 12% for the group, while our 2015��016 estimates are largely unchanged. In addition, we are adjusting our price targets for Cloud Peak Energy (CLD) to $25 from $26 and Walter Energy (WLT) to $7.50 from $8.50 as we update our coal price deck for 2Q14 actuals and the 3Q14 met coal benchmark settlement, as well as adjust for rail service issues in the Powder River Basin. In terms of our overall coal coverage, we continue to prefer steam coal names and/or
- [By Tyler Crowe]
Alpha Natural Resources (NYSE: ANR ) : It's pretty easy to be down on coal companies right now, but of all of them, Alpha Natural Resources seems to be struggling the most. Alpha's biggest problem is a real estate problem: location, location, location.
Hot Safest Stocks To Buy For 2014: Virtual Piggy Inc (VPIG)
Virtual Piggy Inc., formerly Moggle, Inc., incorporated on February 11, 2008, is a development-stage company. The Company is a technology development company that delivers an online security platform, which consists of three separate products: Virtual Piggy, ParentMatch and ParentPlayback, and Age Verification Service. Its Virtual Piggy product enables online businesses to interact and transact with the Under 18 market in a manner consistent with the Children�� Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The Company�� Platform is designed to solve the friendly fraud problem for Website operators, providers, and online retailers, and permitting Website operators and online retailers to transact online business with children between the ages of 8 and 13 in compliance with COPPA.
Virtual Piggy
Virtual Piggy was developed in response to the growing need for parents/guardians to allow their children to transact online in a controlled manner in light of an increasing number of online services and products targeted towards children. Virtual Piggy provides an online payment profile that allows parents to set up, monitor and control their children�� online spending. Parents can establish how much a child can spend in a single transaction, or over time, and also control the merchants with which the child can transact business. Parents also have the ability to set up approval rules and notification methods. The Virtual Piggy product tracks all spending and parents can receive alerts and reports on spending patterns. Virtual Piggy has been certified by the Chase Paymentech system and can process transactions from all major credit and debit card systems, including MasterCard, Visa, and American Express.
ParentMatch and ParentPlayback
The ParentMatch and ParentPlayback Web services are designed to provide the parent/guardian with a higher level of control than is provided by nanny type services. In addition, the Web service ID will follow the child whenever he or! she is on a computer, as opposed to traditional controls that are resident on a personal computer (PC) by PC basis. ParentMatch will provide filtering for the parent or guardian to be able to control, such areas as the Web sites a child may access; the types of content they may view, and who they can interact with online. ParentPlayback will provide the parent or guardian with a video transcript of their child�� online session.
Age Check
Age Check will be a persistent software system and service designed to provide a verification mechanism for the age of a person online. The system and service will provide a secure checking mechanism to determine a person�� age. The main purpose of this system and service is to determine whether setup information supplied by a person to gain access to a social network or other online site is correct. The invention will provide an Application Programming Interface (API) that exposes software functions that Websites, Web services and Internet enabled desktop applications can utilize to enforce age checks when a person attempts to create an online account and/or gain access to a Website.
The Company competes PayPal and Teen Visa.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By CRWE]
Last Friday, VPIG previously surged (+7.27%) up +0.16 at $2.33 with 89,577 shares in play at the close (ref. google finance June 28, 2013 ��Close).
Virtual Piggy, Inc. previously reported it has reached a membership of over 250,000 users.
Virtual Piggy promotes financial management while empowering youth under 18 to make purchasing, saving and other money management decisions for themselves, within the boundaries setup by parents. The technology serves as a family wallet that is available online or via mobile, and is always 100% free to use.
Hot Safest Stocks To Buy For 2014: Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc (MTU)
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. (MUFJ), incorporated on April 2, 2001, is a holding company for The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd. (BTMU), Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation (MUTB), Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Holdings Co., Ltd. (MUSHD), Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co., Ltd.( MUMSS), Mitsubishi UFJ NICOS Co., Ltd. (Mitsubishi UFJ NICOS) and other companies engaged in a range of financial businesses. Its services include commercial banking, trust banking, securities, credit cards, consumer finance, asset management, leasing and fields of financial services. In May 2010, the Company and Morgan Stanley formed two joint ventures in Japan by integrating our respective Japanese securities companies engaged in investment banking and securities businesses. The Company converted the wholesale and retail securities businesses conducted in Japan by the former MUS into one of the joint venture entities, which is named MUMSS. Morgan Stanley contributed the investment banking operations conducted in Japan by its formerly wholly owned subsidiary, Morgan Stanley Japan Securities Co., Ltd. (MSJS) into MUMSS and converted the sales and trading and capital markets businesses conducted in Japan by MSJS into a second joint venture entity called Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities, Co., Ltd.
Integrated Retail Banking Business Group
The Integrated Retail Banking Business Group covers all domestic retail businesses, including commercial banking, trust banking and securities businesses, and enables the Company to offer a range of banking products and services, including financial consulting services, to retail customers in Japan. This business group integrates the retail business of BTMU, MUTB and MUMSS, as well as retail product development, promotion and marketing in a single management structure. Many of its retail services are offered through its network of MUFG Plazas providing individual customers with access to its financial product offerings of integrated commercial b! anking, trust banking and securities services.
The Company offers a range of bank deposit products, including a non-interest-bearing deposit account that is redeemable on demand and intended for payment and settlement functions, and is insured without a maximum amount limitation. It also offers a variety of asset management and asset administration services to individuals, including savings instruments, such as current accounts, ordinary deposits, time deposits, deposits at notice and other deposit facilities. MUFJ also offers trust products, such as loan trusts and money trusts, and other investment products, such as investment trusts, performance-based money trusts and foreign currency deposits.
The Company creates portfolios by combining savings instruments and investment products. It also provide a range of asset management and asset administration products, as well as customized trust products for high-net-worth individuals, as well as advisory services relating to the purchase and disposal of real estate and effective land utilization, and testamentary trusts. The Company provides a varied line up of investment trust products allowing its customers to choose products according to their investment needs through BTMU, MUTB and MUMSS, as well as kabu.com Securities, which specializes in online financial services. In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2010, BTMU offered a total of five investment trusts. As of the end of March 2010, BTMU offered its clients a total of 73 investment trusts.
The Company offers securities, including publicly offered stocks, foreign and domestic investment trusts, Japanese government bonds, foreign bonds and various other products. The Company offers housing loans, card loans and other loans to individuals. With respect to housing loans, in addition to housing loans incorporating health insurance for seven major illnesses, BTMU began offering in June 2009 preferential interest rates under its Environmentally Friendly Support program ! to custom! ers who purchase environment-conscious houses (like houses with solar electric systems), which meet specific criteria in response to increasing public interest in environmental issues. In September 2009, BTMU launched housing loans with home mortgage insurance, which BTMU jointly developed with the Japan Housing Finance Agency, a governmental agency under the Japanese government�� economic stimulus measures, under which the agency indemnifies BTMU for losses from housing loans.
The Company offers products and services through a range of channels, including branches, automated teller machines (ATMs) (including convenience store ATMs shared by multiple banks), Mitsubishi-Tokyo UFJ Direct (telephone, Internet and mobile phone banking), the Video Counter and postal mail. It offers integrated financial services combining its banking, trust banking and securities services at MUFG Plazas. These Plazas provide retail customers with integrated and flexible suite of services at one-stop outlets. As of March 31 2010, the Company provided those services through 47 MUFG Plazas. The Company offers MUTB�� trust related products and advisory services through its trust agency system not only for MUTB customers but also for BTMU and MUMSS customers. As of March 31, 2010, BTMU engaged in eight businesses as the trust banking agent for MUTB: testamentary trusts, inheritance management, asset succession planning, inheritance management agency operations, business management financial consulting, lifetime gift trusts, share disposal trusts, and marketable securities administration trusts.
Integrated Corporate Banking Business Group
The Integrated Corporate Banking Business Group covers all domestic and overseas corporate businesses, including commercial banking, investment banking, trust banking and securities businesses, as well as UnionBanCal Corporation (UNBC). UNBC is a wholly owned subsidiary of BTMU and a US bank holding company with Union Bank being its primary subsidiary. T! he Compan! y provides various financial solutions, such as loans and fund management, remittance and foreign exchange services. It also helps its customers develop business strategies, such as inheritance-related business transfers and stock listings.
It offers advanced financial solutions to companies through corporate and investment banking services. Product specialists globally provide derivatives, securitization, syndicated loans, structured finance and other services. It also provides investment banking services, such as merger and acquisition (M&A) advisory, bond and equity underwriting. It provides online banking services that allow customers to make domestic and overseas remittances electronically. It also provides a global cash pooling/netting service, and the Treasury Station, a fund management system for a multi-company group. The Company�� global Corporate and Investment Banking business (Global CIB), primarily serves companies, financial institutions, and sovereign and multinational organizations with a set of solutions for their financing needs.
Integrated Trust Assets Business Group
The Integrated Trust Assets Business Group covers asset management and administration services for products, such as pension trusts and security trusts by integrating the trust banking expertise of MUTB and the international strengths of BTMU. The business group provides a range of services to corporate and pension funds, including stable and secure pension fund management and administration, advice on pension schemes, and payment of benefits to scheme members. Its Integrated Trust Assets Business Group combines MUTB�� trust assets business, comprising trust assets management services, asset administration and custodial services, and the businesses of Mitsubishi UFJ Global Custody S.A., Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co., Ltd. and KOKUSAI Asset Management Co., Ltd.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Jim Jubak]
I think you can use shares of Japanese exporters-such as Toyota Motors (TM)-or Japanese financials-such as Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MTU)-as trading vehicles for this move. I mention both because they trade as very liquid ADRs in New York. If you trade in Tokyo, you should look at exporters more leveraged to the yen than Toyota-such as Hino Motors (JP:7205 in Tokyo) or Mazda Motor (JP:7261)-or real estate development companies with more yen sensitivity than more diversified financials-such as Sumitomo Realty and Development (JP:8830). Toyota and Mitsubishi UFJ are both members of my Jubak's Picks portfolio.
Hot Safest Stocks To Buy For 2014: Comfort Systems USA Inc. (FIX)
Comfort Systems USA, Inc. provides installation, maintenance, repair, and replacement services for the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in the mechanical services industry in the United States. The company engages in the design, engineering, integration, installation, and start-up of HVAC, building automation controls, and related systems; and maintenance, repair, replacement, reconfiguration, and monitoring of HVAC systems and industrial process piping. It also provides specialized applications, such as building automation control systems, fire protection, process cooling, electronic monitoring, and process piping, as well as electrical and plumbing services. The company offers its services for office buildings, retail centers, apartment complexes, and manufacturing plants, as well as healthcare, education, and government facilities. It serves building owners and developers, general contractors, architects, consulting engineers, and property manag ers in the commercial, industrial and institutional HVAC markets. Comfort Systems USA, Inc. was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.
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 Comfort Systems USA (NYSE: FIX ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below.
Hot Safest Stocks To Buy For 2014: Cbeyond Inc.(CBEY)
Cbeyond, Inc. provides managed information technology (IT) and communications services to small businesses in the United States. Its services include local and long-distance voice, broadband Internet, mobile services, broadband laptop access, voicemail, email, Web hosting, fax-to-email, data backup, file-sharing, virtual private networking, and cloud servers; and cloud applications, data center infrastructure as a service, cloud private branch exchange phone systems, metro Ethernet, multi-protocol label switching, information security, administration management, and professional services to migrate and manage customer environments. It sells its products and services through direct sales; value-added resellers, local area network consultants, and other IT and communications consultants; and managed services providers, systems integrators, and software vendors. The company was formerly known as Cbeyond Communications, Inc. and changed its name to Cbeyond, Inc. in July 2006. Cbeyond, Inc. was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Monica Gerson]
Cbeyond (NASDAQ: CBEY) soared 6.29% to $6.76 in the pre-market trading. Cbeyond shares have dropped 10.67% over the past 52 weeks, while the S&P 500 index has gained 26.42% in the same period.
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