Saturday, September 13, 2014

Top 5 Companies For 2014

That fancy-dancy Starbucks card promotion is taking some unexpected PR heat.

Some consumers are crying foul after Gilt, the luxury retailer working with Starbucks on the promotion, accidentally posted ��then quickly un-posted ��the $450, ultra-limited edition Starbucks Metal card on its site one day before it was supposed to go on sale.

Result: Some savvy consumers not only bought that card way ahead of the curve, but turned around and re-posted the collectible cards for sale on eBay ��at as much as twice the price. This, even before the cards were supposedly available for purchase to general consumers at noon EST on Friday.

MORE: Demand for exclusive card had been expected

At the same time, My Starbucks Rewards Gold-level customers also had an early chance to buy a very limited number of cards one hour before the general public.

Top 10 Regional Bank Companies To Own In Right Now: Extreme Networks Inc.(EXTR)

Extreme Networks, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, develops and markets network infrastructure equipment and services to businesses, hospitals, schools, hotels, telecommunications companies, and government agencies. It offers Summit product family of stackable Ethernet switching systems that provide 10 megabit to 40 gigabit connection speeds, various physical presentations, and options to deliver power-over-Ethernet or unpowered standard Ethernet ports; and Black Diamond family of modular Ethernet switching systems, which deliver modular or chassis-based Ethernet connectivity solutions for enterprises, data centers, and service providers. The company also offers SummitWM family of wireless network controllers and associated Altitude access points to enable the deployment of nomadic and mobile converged network applications; and RidgeLine management software system that includes features tailored to data center, campus, and service provider management. It has strategic relationships with Motorola Inc., Netgear, Inc., Ericsson Enterprise AB, and Nokia Siemens Networks. The company sells its products through distributors, resellers, and field sales organizations. It operates in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Central America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South America, and the Asia Pacific. Extreme Networks, Inc. was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Rich Bieglmeier]

    We like to take it one step further than just buying, iStock specifically targets insiders with a history of making the correct call. Extreme Networks Inc. (EXTR) Director, Maury Austin is taking a second bite of the apple.

Top 5 Companies For 2014: MSCI Inc (MSCI)

MSCI Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides a suite of performance, risk management, and corporate governance products and services worldwide. The company operates in two segments, Performance and Risk, and Governance. The Performance and Risk segment offers investment decision support tools, including equity indices, real estate indices and benchmarks, portfolio risk and performance analytics, and credit analytics, as well as environmental, social, and governance products. Its products are used in various investment processes, including portfolio construction and rebalancing, performance benchmarking and attribution, risk management and analysis, regulatory and client reporting, index-linked investment product creation, asset allocation, social responsibility assessment, environmental stewardship, investment manager selection, and investment research. The Governance segment provides corporate governance products and services, and specialized financial research and analysis services to institutional investors and corporations. It facilitates the voting of proxies by institutional investors and provides in-depth research and analysis to help inform voting decisions and identify issuer-specific risk; and offers global equity security coverage, and integrated products and services, including proxy voting, policy creation, research, vote recommendations, vote execution, post-vote disclosure, and reporting and analytical tools. This segment also provides class action monitoring and claims filing services to aid institutional investors in the recovery of funds from securities class action settlements. The company offers its products and services under the MSCI, MSCI ESG, Barra, RiskMetrics, ISS, FEA, IPD, and CFRA brands. Its clients include asset owners, institutional and retail asset managers, and financial intermediaries. The company was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Benjamin Shepherd]

    The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index (NYSE: EEM) seems to have halted its slide.� The index bottomed out year-to-date on February 3, when it was down 11.2 percent. Since then, it has gained 1.5 percent, but bargains in the emerging markets still abound.

    As I discussed in �� Plan, Not a Panic��two weeks ago, emerging markets are in much better economic shape today than they were even just a few years ago, much less during the currency crisis that peaked in 1998. Foreign exchange reserves are generally much more robust, budget deficits are narrower if they exist at all and, so far at least, the full-blown currency war that many were predicting last year isn�� likely to breakout.

    With rationality finally setting in, this is a terrific time to do a little bargain hunting in the emerging markets.

    The most obvious play here is the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index itself. Covering China (18.8 percent of assets), South Korea (16 percent), Taiwan (12 percent) and Brazil (10.2 percent) with smaller positions spanning Asia and Europe, the fund is most exposed to any shift in sentiment.

    The fund is currently trading at just 10.2 times forward one-year earnings, well below its average of about 18 times over the past two decades. On a price-to-sales basis it is even more attractive valued at just 1.03 times; the last time the index was this cheap on a sales basis was early 2009.

    So while there are always dangers in trying to call a bottom to any market move, valuations alone are attractive enough to start pulling bargain hunters back in.

    A broadly diversified play on an emerging market turnaround, iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index is a great buy up to 45, which leaves plenty of room to run back to the average.

    For those who can tolerate a bit more risk, you can also drill down and make more country-specific bets.

    At this point my favorite would be iShares MSCI South Korea Index Fund (NYSE: EWY).

    Sout

Top 5 Companies For 2014: Berry Plastics Group Inc (BERY)

Berry Plastics Group, Inc. (Berry), incorporated on November 18, 2005, is a provider of plastic consumer packaging and engineered materials. Berry owns 100% interest of Berry Plastics Corporation. Berry sells its solutions predominantly into end markets, such as food and beverage, healthcare and personal care. The Company operates in three segments: Rigid Packaging, Engineered Materials and Flexible Packaging. As of September 19, 2012, the Company supplied its customers through 82 manufacturing facilities throughout the United States (68 locations) and select international locations (14 locations). In June 2012, the Company acquired 100% interest of Frans Nooren Beheer B.V. and its operating companies (Stopaq). In September 2011, the Company acquired 100% interests of Rexam Closures Kentucky Inc., Rexam Delta Inc., Rexam Closures LLC, Rexam Closure Systems LLC, Rexam de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Rexam Singapore PTE Ltd., Rexam Participacoes Ltda. and Rexam Plasticos do Brasil Ltda. (collectively, Rexam SBC). In August 2011, Berry acquired 100% interest of LINPAC Packaging Filmco, Inc.

Rigid Packaging

The Company�� Rigid Packaging business consists of containers, foodservice items, house wares, closures, over caps, bottles, prescription vials, and tubes. The end uses for these products are consumer-oriented end markets, such as food and beverage, retail mass marketers, healthcare, personal care and household chemical. The Company manufactures a collection of container products. The Company produces 32 ounce or thermoformed polypropylene (PP) drink cups and offers a product line with sizes ranging from 12 to 52 ounces. The Company�� products of house wares market is focused on producing semi-disposable plastic home and party and plastic garden products. The Company produces closures and over caps across several of its product lines, including continuous-thread and child-resistant closures, as well as aerosol over caps. The Company also provides a range of custom closure ! solutions including fitments and plugs for medical applications, cups and spouts for liquid laundry detergent, and dropper bulb assemblies for medical and personal care applications.

The Company competes with Airlite, Letica, Polytainers, Silgan, Aptar Group and Reynolds.

Engineered Materials

Berry�� Engineered Materials business primarily consists of pipeline corrosion protection solutions, specialty tapes and adhesives, polyethylene-based film products, and can liners served to a variety of end markets including oil, water and gas infrastructure, industrial and consumer-oriented end markets. The Company produces anti-corrosion products to infrastructure, rehabilitation and pipeline projects throughout the world. Products include heat-shrinkable coatings, single- and multi-layer sleeves, pipeline coating tapes, anode systems for cathodic protection and epoxy coatings. These products are used in oil, gas and water supply and construction applications.

Berry is the manufacturer of cloth and foil tape products. Other tape products include range of splicing and laminating tapes, flame-retardant tapes, vinyl-coated and carton sealing tapes, electrical, double-faced cloth, masking, mounting, original equipment manufacturer (OEM) medical and specialty tapes. These products are sold under the National, Nashua and Polyken brands in the United States. The Company manufactures and sells a portfolio of PE-based film products to end users in the retail markets. These products are sold under brands, such as Ruffies and Film-Gard. Its products include drop cloths and retail trash bags. The Company manufactures customized PP-based, woven and sewn containers for the transportation and storage of raw materials, such as seeds, titanium dioxide, clay and resin pellets.

The Company offers range of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) meat film and agricultural film. Berry�� products are used primarily to wrap fresh meats, poultry and produce for supermarket applic! ations. I! n addition, the Company offers a line of boxed products for food service and retail sales. Berry sells trash-can liners and food bags for offices, restaurants, schools, hospitals, hotels, municipalities and manufacturing facilities. The Company also sells products under the Big City, Hospi-Tuff, Plas-Tuff, Rhino-X and Steel-Flex brands. The Company produces both hand and machine-wrap stretch films, which are used by end users to wrap products and packages for storage and shipping. It sells stretch film products to distributors and retail and industrial end users under the MaxTech and PalleTech brands.

The Company competes with AEP, Sigma and 3M.

Flexible Packaging

The Company�� Flexible Packaging business consists of barrier, multilayer film products, as well as finished flexible packages, such as printed bags and pouches. Berry manufactures and sells a range of film products ranging from mono layer to coextruded films having up to nine layers, lamination films sold primarily to flexible packaging converters and used for peelable lid stock, stand-up pouches, pillow pouches and other flexible packaging formats. The Company also manufactures barrier films used for cereal, cookie, cracker and dry mix packages that are sold directly to food manufacturers like Kraft and Pepsico. It also manufactures films for industrial applications ranging from lamination film for carpet padding to films used in solar panel construction.

The Company supplies component and packaging films used for personal care applications. Berry is a converter of printed bags, pouches and roll stock. Its manufacturing base includes integrated extrusion that combines with printing, laminating, bagmaking, Innolok and laser-score converting processes. The Company is a supplier of printed film products for the fresh bakery, tortilla and frozen vegetable markets with brands, such as SteamQuick Film, Freshview bags and Billboard. The Company manufactures specialty coated and laminated produ! cts for a! range of packaging applications. Its products are sold under the MarvelGuard and MarvelSeal brands and are sold to converters who transform them into finished goods.

The Company competes with Printpak, Tredegar and Bemis.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Bryan Murphy]

    It's certainly not as big as Berry Plastics Group Inc. (NYSE:BERY). It's not even as big as Tredegar Corporation (NYSE:TG). There's one big way AEP Industries (NASDAQ:AEPI) can certainly compete head-on with BERY and TG right now, however... as an investment opportunity. Thanks to the bullish bump AEPI gave us last week, a long-standing selloff has been revered, and there's a whole lot of ground to make up.

  • [By John Udovich]

    One of the most famous scenes in the cult classic, the Graduate, was when Mr. McGuire�took Dustin Hoffman�� character aside and said�"Ben, I want to say one word to you, just one word: Plastics"; but what about the Berry Plastics Group Inc (NYSE: BERY) and its performance verses that of the�iShares S&P 500 Index ETF (NYSEARCA: IVV), iShares Russell Midcap Index Fund ETF (NYSEARCA: IWR) and iShares S&P SmallCap 600 Index ETF (NYSEARCA: IJR)? I should mention that plastics and the Berry Plastics Group was not the place to be yesterday as the stock took a tumble on reduced guidance.

Top 5 Companies For 2014: Dynamic Materials Corporation(BOOM)

Dynamic Materials Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides explosion-welded clad metal plates, oil field perforating equipment and explosives, and welding services worldwide. It operates in three segments: Explosive Metalworking, Oilfield Products, and AMK Welding. The Explosive Metalworking segment primarily manufactures explosion-welded clad metal plates that are used in the construction of heavy and corrosion resistant pressure vessels, and heat exchangers for oil and gas, alternative energy, chemical and petrochemical, hydrometallurgy, aluminum production, shipbuilding, power generation, and industrial refrigeration industries. This segment sells its products through senior management, direct sales personnel, program managers, and independent sales representatives. The Oilfield Products segment engages in the manufacture, marketing, and sale of perforating explosives and associated hardware, as well as seismic explosives for the oil and gas industry. Its p roducts include shaped charges, detonators, detonating cords, bidirectional boosters, and perforating guns for the perforation of oil and gas wells. This segment offers its products through direct selling, licensed distributors, independent sales representatives, and international distribution centers. The AMK Welding segment provides welding, heat treatment, and inspection services primarily to power turbine manufacturers, and commercial and military aircraft engine manufacturers. The company was formerly known as Explosive Fabricators, Inc. and changed its name to Dynamic Materials Corporation in 1994. Dynamic Materials Corporation was founded in 1965 and is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Chris Hill]

    In this installment of Motley Fool Money, our analysts talk about why they're watching Dynamic Materials (NASDAQ: BOOM  ) , Gentex (NASDAQ: GNTX  ) , and Western Union (NYSE: WU  ) .

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