The products made by software and hardware companies have the power to change human lives more than any other industry, save perhaps health care.
That's helped make the tech economy a large and growing part of the overall U.S. economy.
The tech sector enjoyed the widest operating profit margin of any sector within the S&P 500 Index in the third quarter, at roughly 16%.
Information technology consistently earns more operating income than any other U.S. industry, save for financial services, and last year accounted for 23% of corporate profits.
Top Semiconductor Companies For 2015: Cerus Corporation(CERS)
Cerus Corporation, a biomedical products company, engages in the development and commercialization of the INTERCEPT Blood System. The company?s INTERCEPT system is designed to inactivate blood-borne pathogens in donated blood components intended for transfusion. It markets the INTERCEPT system for platelets and plasma primarily in Europe, the Russian Federation, and the Middle East. The company is also developing INTERCEPT Blood System for red blood cells or red blood cell system, which is designed to inactivate blood-borne pathogens in donated red blood cells for transfusion. Cerus Corporation has collaboration agreements with Baxter International, Inc.; and BioOne Corporation, as well as the United States Armed Forces. The company was founded in 1991 and is based in Concord, California.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Seth Jayson]
Cerus (Nasdaq: CERS ) is expected to report Q1 earnings on April 30. Here's what Wall Street wants to see:
The 10-second takeaway
Comparing the upcoming quarter to the prior-year quarter, average analyst estimates predict Cerus's revenues will expand 15.0% and EPS will remain in the red.
Hot Information Technology Stocks To Watch Right Now: Humboldt Capital Corp (HMB)
Humboldt Capital Corporation (Humboldt) is an investment company with its holdings concentrated in the resource sector. The Company�� principal business is to purchase securities for investment income and capital appreciation over the long term. The Company provides early-stage risk capital, business experience and guidance to junior oil and gas enterprises. Humboldt is engaged in making investments in a range of very small to large companies, which are in turn engaged in the exploration, development, production and acquisition of crude oil and natural gas or minerals, or companies, which provides services to such companies. Humboldt also makes investments in other businesses that have potential for growth. Humboldt has investments in western Canadian energy companies, international oil and gas companies and in the mining sector, with particular emphasis on companies exploring or producing commodities. Advisors' Opinion:- [By Namitha Jagadeesh]
Zurich Insurance Group AG (ZURN) lost 3.6 percent after second-quarter profit missed analysts��estimates. Hennes & Mauritz AB (HMB) declined the most in seven weeks as Europe�� second-biggest clothing retailer reported worse-than-expected sales. BG Group Plc, which derives 20 percent of its oil-and-gas production from Egypt, slipped 2.4 percent as the death toll from nationwide violence in the most populous Arab country climbed above 500.
Hot Information Technology Stocks To Watch Right Now: Greenhunter Resources Inc (GRH)
GreenHunter Resources, Inc., formerly GreenHunter Energy, Inc., incorporated on June 7, 2005, is engaged in providing Total Water Management Solutions to oil and gas operators who are active in the Marcellus, Eagle Ford and Bakken shale plays. The Company operates in three segments: Wind Energy, Water Management and Biomass. All of the Company�� segments are in development stages with no operations. The Company assembled a suite of water management products and services and markets them under the Total Water Management Solutions brand. The Company�� operations includes Total Water Management Solutions, Frac-Cycle, remote access management compliance asset tracking (RAMCAT), equipment and tank rentals, disposal wells, MAG Tank and salt water disposal animation. On February 17, 2012, the Company closed on the acquisition of 100% of the ownership interest of three fully operational commercial salt water disposal (SWD) wells and associated facilities located in Washington County, Ohio and Lee County, Kentucky. In March 2013, GreenHunter Water, LLC closed the purchase of a 10.8 acre barging terminal facility located in Wheeling, Ohio County, West Virginia. In February 2014, its wholly owned subsidiary, GreenHunter Water, LLC, sold its Kenedy Hunter salt water disposal (SWD) facilities and a SWD permit and surface acreage located at another South Texas property to Sable Environmental, LLC.
The Company�� subsidiary GreenHunter Water, LLC (GreenHunter Water) is focused on water resource management specifically as it pertains to the unconventional oil and natural gas shale resource plays with its business operations in the Appalachian and South Texas basins. GreenHunter Water engaged in providing a full range of solutions to address producers��needs and is built upon an identified need in the oilfield, to deliver a Total Water Management Solution to its customer base through long term agreements. The Company�� Total Water Management Solutions are custom developed to meet producers��wat! er resource planning needs. These solutions include owning and operating saltwater disposal facilities, fluids handling and hauling and logistics services, frac tank and next-generation modular above-ground tank rentals, mobile water treatment technologies and remote asset tracking to provide as value added services to its customers.
The Company�� asset included a fleet of nine water hauling vacuum trucks, and 37 frac tanks (500 barrel capacity each). As of December 31, 2011, total salt water disposal capacity is 9,000 barrels per day, of which 6,000 barrels per day is from two wells located in Ohio and approximately 3,000 barrels per day is from one well located in Kentucky. The Company is engaged in exploring various alternative means of water transport that include temporary and permanent above-ground or below-ground pipeline systems, and the use of rail and barge transport.
GreenHunter Water has assembled a variety of equipment and tanks for rental. Products available in the Eagle Ford and Marcellus Shale areas include 500 barrel frac Tanks, 425 barrel Weir Tanks, modular above-ground temporary storage tanks to replace frac ponds, available up to 41,000 barrel in capacity, frac manifolds and glass lined steel tanks, up to 100,000 barrel. During the year ended December 31, 2011, the Company Completed a project, that included the removal of chemicals and impurities in a sufficient amount for reuse in new wells that were scheduled for fracture stimulation. The project also included the treatment of a gel frac flowback and multiple sources of flowback water blended together. The Company purchased equipment assets to be used to service a long term contract to haul and dispose produced water for several oil companies that control mineral leasehold acreage positions in the Marcellus and Utica Shale plays located in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. The equipment consists of five Peterbilt 388 trucks, five 130 barrel Vacuum Trailers and five vacuum pumps and related equipme! nt.
The Company�� water treatment services name is Frac-Cycle. Frac-Cycle�� flexible design allows the user to take in flow-back or produced water and recycle to either clean brine or fresh water. Recycled water can be used in subsequent frac jobs and in some cases an NPDES permit can be obtained to discharge fresh water into a stream. The Company�� RAMCAT is a system and compliance tool that bundles a combination of its software, advanced hardware and communications technologies to provide a method for remote activity observation via a Web-based portal for management of well-head fluids. RAMCAT includes online data monitoring, which provides oil and natural gas producers near real-time dynamic information on fluid levels, tank temperature, recent transactions, date and time of on-load and off-load, truck and driver identification, H2S and critical condition alarms and battery voltage.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By James E. Brumley]
In a perfect world, a stock's price is merely a reflection of a predictable combination of a company's history and forward-looking prospects. We don't live - or trade - in a perfect world though. In the real world, a chart not only tells a story, but illustrates traders' changing opinion of a stock. The good news is, traders move, thing, buy, and sell in fairly predictable patterns, and when you see certain hints fall in place, you can make a very good trade. Enter Authentidate Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:ADAT) and Greenhunter Resources Inc. (NYSEMKT:GRH). Both GRH as well as ADAT have taken on a bullish shape as of today, and both are apt to be at much higher levels in the foreseeable future.
Hot Information Technology Stocks To Watch Right Now: SandRidge Permian Trust (PER)
SandRidge Permian Trust (the Trust) is a trust formed by SandRidge Energy, Inc. (SandRidge) to own royalty interests in 509 developed oil and natural gas wells located in Andrews County, Texas (the Producing Wells), and 888 oil and natural gas development wells to be drilled (the Development Wells) within an Area of Mutual Interest (AMI). The AMI consists of the Grayburg/San Andres formation in the Permian Basin in Andrews County, Texas. As of December 31, 2010, SandRidge held approximately 16,700 gross acres (15,900 net acres) in the AMI.The Underlying Properties consist of the working interest owned by SandRidge in the Permian Basin in Andrews County, Texas arising under leases and farmout agreements related to properties from which the PDP Royalty Interest and the Development Royalty Interest will be conveyed.
The royalty interest in the Producing Wells (PDP Royalty Interest) entitles the trust to receive 80% of the proceeds from the sale of production of oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids attributable to SandRidge's net revenue interest in the Producing Wells. The royalty interest in the Development Wells the (Development Royalty Interest) entitles the trust to receive 70% of the proceeds from the sale of oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids production attributable to SandRidge's net revenue interest in the Development Wells. As of March 31, 2011, after giving effect to the conveyance of the PDP Royalty Interest and the Development Royalty Interest to the trus, the total reserves estimated to be attributable to the trust were 21.8 million barrels of oil equivalent (MMBoe). This amount includes 5.8 MMBoe attributable to the PDP Royalty Interest and 16.0 MMBoe attributable to the Development Royalty Interest. The reserves consist of 96% liquids (87% oil and 9% natural gas liquids) and 4% natural gas.
SandRidge is an independent oil and natural gas company concentrating on development and production activities related to the exploitation of its significant holdings! in West Texas and the Mid-Continent area of Oklahoma and Kansas. SandRidge operates all of the Producing Wells. SandRidge owns a majority working interest in substantially all of the locations, on which it focuses to drill the Development Wells, and focuses to operate such wells. SandRidge Exploration and Production, LLC (SandRidge E&P) is a wholly owned subsidiary of SandRidge.
The Underlying Properties are located in the greater Fuhrman-Mascho field area, a region in Andrews County, Texas that primarily produces oil from the Grayburg/San Andres formation within the Permian Basin. SandRidge operates three drilling rigs within the AMI and, as of March 31, 2011, had drilled 101 wells. Within the AMI, SandRidge operates 509 wells and has 888 proven undeveloped locations as of March 31, 2011. These 888 proven locations are a combination of 5-acre, 10-acre and 20-acre infill spacing locations. As of March 31, 2011, average daily production from the Underlying Properties was approximately 3,400 barrel of oil equivalent per day (Boe/d).
Permian Basin
The Permian Basin extends throughout southwest Texas and southeast New Mexico over an area approximately 250 miles wide and 300 miles long. It is an oil producing basin in the United States. As of December 31, 2010, SandRidge operated approximately 2,600 gross producing wells in the Permian Basin, with an average working interest of 94%. In March 2011, SandRidge's average daily net production in the Permian Basin was approximately 29,600 Boe/d. SandRidge was operating 16 rigs in the basin as of March 31, 2011. SandRidge drilled 484 wells in this area during the year ended December 31, 2010.
Fuhrman-Mascho Field
The Fuhrman-Mascho field is located near the center of the Central Basin Platform in the Permian Basin. The field produces from the Grayburg/San Andres formation from average depths of approximately 4,000 to 5,000 feet. The Fuhrman-Mascho field is a producing field in the Permian Basin and! it has p! roduced approximately 142 MMBoe as of December 31, 2010. During 2010, SandRidge operated eight drilling rigs in the area and has drilled 307 wells as of March 31, 2011.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Matt DiLallo]
The problem here is that SandRidge has been�dependent�on asset sales and its running out of assets to sell. In addition to the Permian sale, SandRidge has now taken three royalty trusts public. One consisting of Permian Basin assets, SandRidge Permian Trust (NYSE: PER ) and two consisting of Mississippian assets, SandRidge Mississippian Trust I (NYSE: SDT ) and SandRidge Mississippian Trust II (NYSE: SDR ) . While SandRidge still owns a portion of each trust, it likely will continue to sell off its ownership stake in each trust as well as other assets it still owns. At some point SandRidge will need to live within its oil and gas cash flows, otherwise, its not worth owning.�
Hot Information Technology Stocks To Watch Right Now: FormFactor Inc.(FORM)
FormFactor, Inc. designs, develops, manufactures, sells, and supports semiconductor wafer probe card products and solutions worldwide. Its wafer probe card is used as an interface to connect electrically with and test individual chips on a wafer. The company?s wafer probe cards are also used to test dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips, including double data rate (DDR), DDR2, DDR3, SDRAM, PSRAM, mobile DRAM, graphic DRAM, NOR and NAND flash memory chips, serial data devices, chipsets, microprocessors, microcontrollers, and analog devices. It serves manufacturers in the DRAM, flash, and system on chip markets through direct sales force, independent sales representatives, and value added resellers. FormFactor, Inc. was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Livermore, California.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Ben Axler]
In the table below, we've listed a sample of small-cap semiconductor capital equipment stocks such as Entegris (ENTG), Advanced Energy Industries (AEIS), ATMI Inc. (ATMI), MKS Instruments (MKSI), Photronics Inc. (PLAB), Rudolph Technologies (RTEC),FormFactor (FORM) and Mattson Technology (MTSN). The peers trade at approximately 1.0x and 15.5x 2014E revenues and EPS, respectively. Furthermore, the average peer trades at 2.1x tangible book value. However, these multiples are based on average 2014E industry revenue and earnings growth of 18% and 119%, respectively. Axcelis is poised to grow at a rate substantially above the industry average.
- [By Geoff Gannon]
1. Steel Excel (SXCL)
2. FormFactor (FORM)
3. Imation (IMN)
4. Tuesday Morning (TUES)
5. Pacific Biosciences (PACB)
6. Maxygen (MAXY)
7. Westell (WSTL)
8. Volt Information Sciences (VISI)
9. Yasheng Group (YHGG) - [By Alex Planes]
What: Shares of FormFactor (NASDAQ: FORM ) have lost 15% of their value today after the company issued a disappointing earnings report before the opening bell.
Hot Information Technology Stocks To Watch Right Now: eGain Corp (EGAN)
eGain Corporation (eGain), formerly eGain Communications Corporation, incorporated in September 1997, provides multichannel customer service and knowledge management software for in-house or cloud deployment. The Company�� application suite, eGain Service, is available through both licensed and hosted models. It includes integrated applications for social customer service, Web self-service, e-mail management, paper and fax management, chat, co-browsing, short message service (SMS), call tracking and resolution, proactive notifications, cross-channel knowledge management, case management and service fulfillment. These robust applications are built on the eGain OpenCIH platform. The eGain OpenCIH platform enables end-to-end service process management and multichannel, multisite contact center management, and includes certified out of the box integrations with call center, content and business systems. Its applications and platform are built on a service-oriented architecture. It serves a global customer base across a range of industry sectors, including telecommunications, financial services, insurance, outsourced services, retail, technology, manufacturing and consumer goods.
Products and Services
eGain Service 9 is a customer service management solution. It consists of a multichannel customer interaction hub (CIH) platform, eGain OpenCIH Platform, and the eGain Web Customer Experience Suite and the eGain Unified Contact Center Suite, which includes applications for social customer service, Web self-service, and the contact center. The eGain OpenCIH Platform centralizes business rules, interactions, knowledge bases, workflow, analytics, administration and integrations in one common foundation. eGain Mail is a solution for processing inbound customer e-mails and providing mission-critical e-mail customer service. Secure messaging, lifecycle audits and real-time archival are some of the features that provide its customers e-mail management platform for their enterprises. Addi! tional modules include eGain Fax to route, track and respond to faxes with the same infrastructure that is used to handle e-mails and Web form submissions.
The Company�� eGain CallTrack is a phone call logging system. Together with eGain KnowledgeAgent, it provides an integrated solution for phone call logging, tracking and resolution, as well as follow-on task management for service fulfillment. eGain Chat gives contact center agents a range of tools for serving customers in real-time. eGain Chat supports two-way, follow me Web browsing so that agents and customers can lead each other to specific Web pages. Its eGain CoBrowse enables contact center agents to provide live collaboration options to online customers and prospects. It gives companies the ability to deliver real-time assistance. The capabilities include enabling the agent and the customer to fill out forms together, creation of business rules for specific Web pages, and allowing phone agents to provide experience by conducting a co-browse session.
The Company�� eGain SelfService is a solution supporting dynamic frequently asked questions (FAQs), topic-based browsing, natural language search, guided help, virtual assistant technology and case tracking. eGain SelfService offers multi-access self-service capabilities built on a collaborative knowledge management framework within eGain OpenCIH Platform. The modules of this solution are eGain Portals, eGain Guided Help and eGain MessageCenter. eGain Portals deliver a secure and personalized Web self-service gateway, through which customers can retrieve information. This online customer service portal delivers to customers the personal information they want, the way they want to see it, and when they want to see it. Customers can view FAQs, manage their own accounts, review open service tickets, and review their communications with the company within a secure, personalized environment. Its eGain Guided Help gives customers interactive access to the company�� knowl! edge base! , allowing them to find answers and troubleshoot problems by themselves at their convenience. It uses patented search and reasoning technology, coupled with natural language and advanced linguistic processing to search, suggest additional questions and recommend solutions.
The Company�� eGain MessageCenter enables secure and authenticated messaging between a business and its customers. eGain MessageCenter is a secure Web-based portal for customers to read confidential messages, including attachments. Based on a business-configurable option, agent responses to customer inquiries are automatically replaced with a dynamically generated universal resource locator (URL), which directs the customers to the eGain MessageCenter where they authenticate themselves to read the message details. Customers can also send messages to the business through this secure site. All messages are stored within the eGain Platform as part of the multichannel customer history. Its eGain Chatbot is used to create virtual assistants to engage Website visitors, answer their queries, escort them on the Website, and escalate seamlessly to live agents. Chatbots help deflect phone calls to Web self-service, provide memorable and brand-aligned customer service experiences, and increase online sales conversion.
The Company�� eGain Social helps a business monitor the Web and social media sites for conversations about itself. It enables the business to identify and respond to customer inquiries or complaints. It also helps harvest useful content from experts in these channels and develops it into knowledge base articles that can be shared with their other customers. Its eGain Adviser empowers agents handle complex customer interactions. Agents receive guided help for providing contextual up-sell and cross-sell, follow-on service fulfillment and value-added advice through conversations that are compliant with regulations. The solution includes a user interface, integrated workflow and interactive process guida! nce, powe! red by the eGain Inference Reasoning Engine.
The Company�� eGain KnowledgeAgent uses patented search and reasoning technology coupled with natural language and advanced linguistic processing to search, suggest additional questions, and recommend solutions. This solution, in conjunction with eGain Content Adapter, also allows agents to access information stored in external systems. Its eGain IVR enables phone self-service experiences by adding intelligence to interactive voice response, (IVR) and unifying it with other interaction channels, including Web self-service. It offers intelligent dialogs driven by eGain�� case-based reasoning technology and seamless movement across channels.
The Company�� eGain Notify is a flexible, easy-to-use application for managing and delivering automatic reminders, alerts, and updates at all stages of the customer relationship cycle. It is used to provide proactive customer service by sending alerts to customers through multiple interaction channels, such as e-mail, phone and SMS. Its eGain AutoClassify enables companies to increase response turnaround and improve problem resolution by categorizing and routing incoming e-mail and other inquiries. It can also be set up to provide auto-suggestions and auto-responses. eGain AutoClassify understands the customer�� issue and routes inquiries to queues based on categories and the confidence level assigned to those categories. Customer interactions can be placed into multiple independent categories.
The Company�� eGain AutoWorkflow enables businesses to automate complex fulfillment processes that require little or no agent interaction once initiated. Tasks initiated from either e-mails, Webforms, or time-driven processes are automatically handled using the capabilities of the eGain Workflow engine. Its eGain SME is an enterprise collaboration tool that allows subject matter experts (SMEs), to participate in the process of resolving customer queries. SMEs, both internal in the contact ! center an! d external in other departments or companies, are able to fully participate in both solving ongoing problems and suggesting new solutions for inclusion in the knowledge base.
The Company�� eGain Adapters include a set of out-of-the-box integration modules for connecting eGain applications with content repositories, call center telephony solutions, databases and business applications. Its offers three integration modules: eGain Content Adapter, eGain CTI Adapter, and eGain Data Adapter. Its eGain Widgets (Web and Mobile) provides contextual access to the knowledge base and customer accounts from various parts of the businesses��Websites, as well as mobile interfaces.
eGain OnDemand
eGain OnDemand, the software as a service version of the Company�� software suite, is a robust and scalable solution that is used by enterprises to build customer interaction hubs. It hosts applications on servers located in its third party SAS 70 Type II data center. The hosting solution allows rapid deployment of eGain products, including seamless secure access to customer�� in-house data systems; round the clock management of infrastructure, security, servers, operating systems and databases; management systems to monitor servers and applications allowing for availability and performance; easy migration from eGain OnDemand to in-house option and vice-versa. Its value-added services include e-mail spam and virus cleaning, post office services, virtual private networks, remote data access, encrypted backups, and test/reporting/warm spare servers.
eGain SLaaS
eGain SLaaS, the solution-as-a-service version of the Company�� software suite. It is designed to take the risk out of mission-critical customer interaction software deployments and enables companies to validate and realize business value with usage-based pricing and no long-term contracts.
Consulting and Education Services
The Company�� global professional services ! organizat! ion provides consulting and education services designed to facilitate customer success and build customer loyalty. Its consulting services group offers rapid implementation services, custom solution development and systems integration services. It provides these services independently or in partnership with systems integrators who have developed consulting expertise on its platform. The Company�� consulting strategy is to increase margins by providing customers with a range of pre-packaged solutions built on top of our product line.The Company�� education services group provides a range of basic and customized training programs to its customers and partners. Training programs are offered either in-person at the customer site, or at one of its global training centers.The Company�� education services strategy is to provide training and delivery methods for its customers and partners.
eGain Customer Support Service
The Company offers a range of support services designed to rapidly respond to inquiries. Its technical support services are available to customers globally under maintenance agreements. Its customer support service strategy is to provide customer support account managers for large enterprise customers. The customer support service team uses eGain�� own software suite to provide services to its customers through customer support service centers located in California, the United Kingdom, and India.
The Company competes with Art Technology Group, Inc., Avaya, Inc., Consona Corporation, Alcatel, InQuira, Inc., Kana Software, Inc., Live Person, Inc., nGenera Corporation, RightNow Technologies, Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Oracle Corporation, Salesforce.com Inc. and SAP Inc.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By John Udovich]
Small cap cloud contact software provider Five9 Inc (NASDAQ: FIVN) saw a small pop when it debuted in an IPO last Friday but its now trended back down to its debut price, meaning its worth taking a closer look at the stock along with some potential peers or benchmarks like Incontact Inc (NASDAQ: SAAS), eGain Corp (NASDAQ: EGAN) and LivePerson, Inc (NASDAQ: LPSN).
- [By Monica Gerson]
eGain (NASDAQ: EGAN) shares fell 3.76% to reach a new 52-week low of $6.40. eGain's trailing-twelve-month ROE is -8.92%
Aeropostale (NYSE: ARO) shares tumbled 6.81% to reach a new 52-week low of $4.57. Aeropostale shares have dropped 65.05% over the past 52 weeks, while the S&P 500 index has gained 15.37% in the same period.
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