Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Top 10 Mid Cap Stocks To Watch Right Now

There's little denying the fact that it was a brutal week for anyone who owns physical gold bullion or gold mining companies.

Gold has been under pressure for a myriad of reasons including the strong rebound in U.S. markets which has wiped investor fear nearly off the radar, relatively low levels of inflation over an extended period of time, and, more recently, the Cypriot financial crisis that, as part of its deal to secure $13 billion in financing, required Cyprus to sell a portion of its bullion holdings. Simply mentioning the idea of buying gold is probably enough to send most people scurrying the other way at the moment.

Yet, I believe that now could be the perfect time to consider investing in gold ��whether it be the physical asset itself or through exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, or directly in individual miners for those who are braver and more willing to take on more risk. Here are five reasons why gold looks like a screaming buy right now.

Top 10 Mid Cap Stocks To Watch Right Now: Banco Santander S.A.(STD)

Banco Santander, S.A. provides a range of banking and financial products. It accepts customer demand, time, and notice deposits, and international and domestic interbank deposits, as well as offers auto financing, personal loans, and credit cards; and automated cash dispensers, savings books updaters, telephone banking services, and electronic and Internet banking services. The company also engages corporate banking, treasury, and investment banking activities. It provides transaction banking services in cash management, trade finance, and basic financing; and corporate finance services for mergers and acquisitions, and asset and capital structuring, as well as involves in the origination activities and risk management, and distribution of structured products and debt in the credit markets; structuring and trading activities in financial markets of interest rate and exchange rate instruments; and activities relating to the equity markets. In addition, it engages in the des ign and management of mutual and pension funds, and life and general insurance products. The company operates primarily in Spain, the United Kingdom, other European countries, Brazil and other Latin American countries, and the United States. As of December 31, 2010, it had 6,063 branch offices in continental Europe; 1,416 branches in the United Kingdom; 5,882 branches in Latin America; and 721 branches in the United States. The company was formerly known as Banco Santander Central Hispano S.A. and changed its name to Banco Santander, S.A. in June 2007. Banco Santander, S.A. was founded in 1857 and is based in Madrid, Spain.

Top 10 Mid Cap Stocks To Watch Right Now: Air T Inc.(AIRT)

Air T, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides overnight air cargo, ground equipment sales, and ground support services. Its Overnight Air Cargo segment offers small package overnight airfreight delivery services on a contract basis to the air express delivery services industry. The company?s Ground Equipment Sales segment manufactures, sells, and services aircraft ground support and other specialized equipment products, including aircraft deicers, scissor type lifts, military and civilian decontamination units, glycol recovery vehicles, and other special purpose mobile equipment. This segment offers its products to domestic and international passenger and cargo airlines, ground handling companies, the United States Air Force and Navy, airports, and industrial customers. Its Ground Support Services segment provides ground support equipment maintenance and facilities maintenance services to domestic airlines and aviation service providers. As of March 31, 2010, the company operated 80 cargo aircrafts under dry-lease service contracts in the United States and the Caribbean. Air T, Inc. was founded in 1980 and is based in Maiden, North Carolina.

5 Best Cheapest Stocks To Buy Right Now: Lankom Electronics Limited (L22.SI)

LANKom Electronics Limited, an investment holding company, engages in the development, design, manufacture, and distribution of electromagnetic components for original equipment manufacturers. It offers hubs and switching hubs used in local area network and other networking equipment. The company also provides wireless routers, broadband routers, and IP phones used to transmit voice, data, and images, as well as used in broadband transmission over traditional telephone lines, such as asymmetric digital subscriber line or cable modem for the telecommunications industry. In addition, it offers products used in LAN port for desktop and notebook computers. Further, the company involves in the procurement and import of raw materials, export of products, trade of electromagnetic components, and provision of administrative and logistics support services. The company markets its products under the LANKom trademark. It primarily operates in Taiwan and the People�s Republic of Chin a. The company was founded in 1995 and is based in Taipei, Taiwan.

Top 10 Mid Cap Stocks To Watch Right Now: MicroStrategy Incorporated(MSTR)

MicroStrategy Incorporated provides enterprise software platforms for business intelligence (BI), and mobile and social intelligence applications worldwide. The company offers MicroStrategy 9, an integrated BI platform that enables businesses to make business decisions. The MicroStrategy 9 platform?s product components comprise Intelligence Server, a foundation for the BI platform; Report Services, a reporting engine delivering production and operational reports, managed metrics reports, and interactive dashboards; OLAP Services that allows Web and desktop users to manipulate Intelligent Cubes databases; Web, a Web interface providing query, reporting, and analysis; Distribution Services that offers automated report and dashboard distribution; Office, which enables Microsoft Office users to create, run, edit, and format MicroStrategy report; and Desktop that provide users access to data through analytical applications. The MicroStrategy 9 platform?s product components al so include Architect, whose data sources are modeled through an intuitive graphical user interface; SDK to integrate MicroStrategy 9 features and functionality into any application on multiple platforms; Integrity Manager to compare and verify reports? consistency; Command Manager that automates MicroStrategy administrative tasks; Enterprise Manager to provide prebuilt reports and dashboards; Object Manager that allows administrators to manage disparate and distributed environments; MultiSource Option allowing users to report, analyze, and monitor data; Transaction Services that provides write-back capabilities; and Clustering Option, a plug-and-play add-on to Intelligence Server. The company also offers technical support, consulting, education, and cloud-based solutions. It serves retail, communications, financial services, insurance, healthcare, manufacturing, technology, consumer goods, and public services industries. The company was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Tysons Corner, Virginia.

Top 10 Mid Cap Stocks To Watch Right Now: Prudential Corp(PRU.L)

Prudential plc, together with its subsidiaries, provides retail financial products and services, and asset management services to individuals and businesses in Asia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. It offers life insurance, health and protection products, and mutual funds, as well as selected personal lines property and casualty insurance, group insurance, institutional fund management, and consumer finance. The company has distribution relationships with approximately 75 institutions in Asia; and distributes its insurance products primarily through an agency sales force together with selected banks, and mutual funds through banks and brokers. It also offers fixed annuities, variable annuities, life insurance, managed accounts, and investment products, as well as institutional products, including guaranteed investment contracts, medium term note funding agreements, and funding agreements through independent insurance agents; independent broker-dealers; regional broker-dealers; wirehouses; registered investment advisers; a small captive agency channel, consisting of approximately 100 life insurance agents; and banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions. In addition, it provides retail financial products and services, including long-term insurance, asset accumulation and retirement income products, retail investment and unit trust products, and fund management services through financial advisers, partnership agreements with banks and other financial institutions, and direct marketing. The company was founded in 1848 and is based in London, the United Kingdom.

Top 10 Mid Cap Stocks To Watch Right Now: SportingBet.com(SBT.L)

Sportingbet Plc operates as an online sports betting and gaming company. The company offers online sports betting services, including sportsbook; and gaming products comprising casino and poker, as well as other games, such as roulette, blackjack, slots, and live dealer games. It operates Websites in 21 languages; and accepts bets in 20 currencies. The company is also involved in telephone and mobile betting businesses. It operates in Europe, Australia, Canada, Brazil, Chile, and South Africa. The company was founded in 1998 and is based in London, the United Kingdom.

Top 10 Mid Cap Stocks To Watch Right Now: Linde AG (LNAGF)

Linde AG is a German company engaged in the gases and engineering sector. It operates two divisions: Gases and Engineering, as core divisions, as well as Gist. The Gases Division includes Healthcare, producing medical gases; and Tonnage, as its two global business units; as well as the two business areas Merchant and Packaged Gases, offering liquefied and cylinder gases, and Electronics. The Company�� products are used in the energy sector, for steel production, chemical processing, environmental protection and welding, as well as in food processing, glass production and electronics. The Engineering division offers planning, project development and construction of turnkey industrial plants used in fields, such as petrochemical and chemical industries, in refineries and fertilizer plants, to recover air gases, to produce hydrogen and synthesis gases, to treat natural gas, and in the pharmaceutical industry. As of August 13, 2012, the Company acquired Lincare Holdings Inc.

Top 10 Mid Cap Stocks To Watch Right Now: 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 10 Mid Cap Stocks To Watch Right Now: Hewlett-Packard Company(HPQ)

Hewlett-Packard Company and its subsidiaries provide products, technologies, software, solutions, and services to individual consumers and small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), as well as to the government, health, and education sectors worldwide. Its Personal Systems Group segment offers commercial personal computers (PCs), consumer PCs, workstations, calculators and other related accessories, and software and services for the commercial and consumer markets. The company?s Services segment provides consulting, outsourcing, and technology services to infrastructure, applications, and business process domains. Its Imaging and Printing Group segment provides consumer and commercial printer hardware, supplies, media, and scanning devices, such as inkjet and Web solutions, laser jet and enterprise solutions, managed enterprise solutions, graphics solutions, and printer supplies. The company?s Enterprise Servers, Storage, and Networking segment offers industry standard s ervers, business critical systems, storage platforms, and networking products, including switches, routers, wireless LAN, and TippingPoint network security products. Its HP Software segment provides enterprise IT management software, information management solutions, and security intelligence/risk management solutions. The company?s HP Financial Services segment offers leasing, financing, utility programs, and asset recovery services; and financial asset management services for enterprise customers, as well as specialized financial services to SMBs, and educational and governmental entities. Hewlett-Packard Company also provides business intelligence solutions that enable businesses to standardize on consistent data management schemes, connect and share data across the enterprise, and apply analytics, as well as licenses its specific technology to third parties. The company was founded in 1939 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Smart Money]

    Forward P/E: 9.2.

     

    Five-year average forward P/E: 13.8.

    Discount to five-year average: 33%.

    As the world's biggest maker of personal computers and printers, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) has two knocks against it -- neither of its major markets is particularly attractive these days, says Kim Caughey, senior analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.

    "In the PC market, HP is fighting deflation," Caughey says. "Next year's hardware is always going to be faster, better, cheaper."

    The Palo Alto, Calif., company's printer and printing business is suffering as companies downsize, she says; fewer workers translates into less printing.

    Even worse is what could happen to HP's margins as demand grows for tiny, cheap netbook computers. "I'm looking into people's pockets and I believe they will be sending their kids back to school with netbooks," says Caughey. "The (profit) margin on netbooks is terrible."

     

    That's part of the bigger problem with a company as consumer-focused as HP. If folks don't have the money, they can't spend it. For that reason, Caughey thinks Hewlett-Packard's shares, while valued at a low multiple, are unattractive.

Top 10 Mid Cap Stocks To Watch Right Now: Huntsman Corporation(HUN)

Huntsman Corporation engages in the manufacture and sale of differentiated organic and inorganic chemical products worldwide. The company offers polyurethane chemicals, including methyl diphenyl diisocyanate, propylene oxide, polyols, propylene glycol, thermoplastic polyurethane, aniline, and methyl tertiary-butyl ether products, which are used to produce rigid and flexible foams, as well as coatings, adhesives, sealants, and elastomers; and performance products, such as amines, carbonates, surfactants, linear alkyl benzene, maleic anhydride, performance chemicals, ethylene glycol, olefins, and technology licenses. It also provides advanced materials comprising epoxy resin compounds and formulations; cross-linking, matting agents, and curing agents; and epoxy, acrylic and polyurethane-based adhesives, and tooling resin formulations. In addition, Huntsman Corporation offers textile chemicals, dyes, and titanium dioxide. The company?s products are used in various applicatio ns, including adhesives, aerospace, automotive, construction products, durable and non-durable consumer products, electronics, medical, packaging, paints and coatings, power generation, refining, synthetic fiber, textile chemicals, and dye industries. Huntsman Corporation was founded in 1970 and is based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Michael]

    Huntsman Corporation (HUN) engages in the manufacture and sale of differentiated organic and inorganic chemical products on a global scale. It has also been given a buy-rating by UBS Investment Research. UBS estimates that for every 10% change in the margin of Propylene Oxide, earnings per share would change b y 5 cents for Huntsman Corporation. Shares of the company are currently trading at $11.2 per share and have traded between $8.13 and $21.52 over the last 52 weeks. Calanese Corporation (CE), a manufacturer and marketer of chemical products, is a competitor of Huntsman Corporation. Huntsman reported a dividend yield of 3.6%, while Calanese reported a dividend yield of 0.5%. Return-on-equity was reported at 10.5% for Huntsman and 51.6% for Calanese. Calanese also generated higher profit and operating margins than Huntsman. There were equal number of hedge funds in each stock, however hedge funds' bet more dollars on Calanese. One of our favorite hedge funds, Third Point, initiated a brand new position in CE during the third quarter. That's why we pick CE over HUN.

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