Top Stocks

By Jim Probasco

Until last week, only 15% of the corn crop in Iowa (the leading corn growing state in the nation) had been planted.

Then came a week of good weather. Iowa farmers responded by launching an invasion of farm machinery into their fertile fields. As of Sunday, 71% of the corn crop had been planted according to The Associated Press.

The same scene played out in all of the key grain states to the extent that the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in its weekly crop progress update that 71% of the corn crop had been sown in those states as well. This figure isn't far off from the 79% average farmers planted by this time over the past five years.

 

 

Younger people hate the food chain. It's like Ronald Reagan with Russian missiles. He was willing to trust them, but he wanted to verify. The millennials, who will be about 30% of this country in a half-dozen years, want their food vetted and verified.

 

That's exactly what Whole Foods (WFM) does. What it stands for. The millennials believe Whole Foods wouldn't sell something unless it were as good as it can be for them. I say "good as it can be" because, even if it is made or sold at Whole Foods, it can still be fattening. It can still be "bad for you," so to speak. But you need Whole Foods to protect you from a world of mass production the way you needed Upton Sinclair's The Jungle as a way to expose the wretched unsanitary conditions of the meatpacking industry at the turn of the century.

 

Quick take  

Everything went right for Home Depot (HD) in the last quarter. Not only did the home-repair retailer report better-than-expected​ earnings on Tuesday, but it also said results in the current quarter would be better than analysts had expected. Shares of Home Depot, which operates 2,257 retail stores in all 50 states, not surprisingly rose on the news.  

By Kyle Woodley

Stick to sandwiches, Subway.

The "House That Jared Built" recently went on the offensive against McDonald's (MCD) and the rest of the fast-food gang by unleashing the results of a survey gauging customer "shame."

The results were both entirely predictable and mostly useless. Reports Business Insider:

 

By Tim Parker

U.S. markets reached another record high Tuesday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) added 50 points and the S&P 500 ($INX) nearly three points. All eyes will be on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's testimony at 10:00 a.m. ET Wednesday.

Morning news

• Disney- (DIS) owned ESPN announced it will cut 300 to 400 jobs or 4%-6% of its workforce.

• JPMorgan Chase (JPM) voted not to split the chairman and CEO roles.

• Oklahoma tornado was listed as one of the top five costliest in history.

 

 

 

The dust has settled at Stillwater Mining (SWC) with the election of four new board members backed by the Clinton Group -- an activist investor that wants the company to focus on the profitability of its U.S. platinum and palladium mines, and cut back or end plans to expand into copper mining after a 2011 acquisition of copper reserves in Argentina.

That removes a major distraction hanging over the company’ stock and should leave the shares free to reflect Stillwater’s unique position as the only U.S. producer of platinum and palladium -- at a time when mines in South Africa are cutting production due to strikes. (Stillwater Mining is a member of my Jubak’s Picks portfolio.)

Palladium and platinum are two of the very few commodities that remain in a supply deficit in 2013 and that are likely, Barclays projects, to remain in deficit in 2014. Because of strikes in South Africa, global platinum production fell 10% in 2013 and palladium production fell 11%.

 

 

Information provided by  Theflyonthewall.com 

Updated: 6 p.m. ET.

The stock market rally of 2013 has been so merry that Goldman Sachs (GS) has boosted its forecast on where it's headed over the next two years. By quite a bit.

The Wall Street giant sees the Standard & Poor's 500 Index ($INX) rising to 1,750 by year-end, a 5% gain. In 2014, their forecast is for an additional 9% gain to 1,900, with 2015 producing a 10% gain to 2,100.

For the widely watched index, that works out to a 26% increase from Monday's close over the next two years. As important, Goldman Sachs sees dividends growing 11% in 2013 and 2014 and 9% in 2015.

Goldman Sachs' forecast came as stocks finished higher on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones industrials ($INDU) closing at new highs. The Nasdaq Composite Index ($COMPX) closed above 3,500 for the first time since October 2000. The major averages ended  higher for a 19th straight Tuesday, the longest winning streak since 1968.  

By Abram Brown  

By Dana Blankenhorn

The present recovery is fueled by, well, fuel.

Fracking has uncovered huge pools of oil in Texas, Ohio and North Dakota, creating an economic boom in those places that has trickled down to the rest of the country.

A Texan may have no more incentive than an Arab to give you a better price on his oil, but he does spread the wealth around, as I saw on a recent trip to Kingsville for my daughter's graduation (TheStreet).

But every oil boom carries within it the seeds of its own destruction.

I have seen this movie before.