Top Stocks

By Anthony Agnello, InvestorPlace.com

While the BlackBerry might be losing ground to the Apple (AAPL) iPhone with each passing day, that doesn't mean Research In Motion (RIMM) is down for the count. In fact, according to a report from Bloomberg filed last Friday, RIMM is set to mount a major counteroffensive against Apple -- and it's much more than the new BlackBerry phone announced today.

Research In Motion is about to get into the tablet computer game with their new iPad competitor, the Blackpad, set to hit stores this fall.

 

By Jim Cramer, TheStreet

 

Given that in this market each day is a totally different event with no continuity with the day before, you have to figure that we forget about Chinese and American PMI figures and we start to fret about the lack of job growth.

 

Once again we focus on the fact that the stimulus is running out, taxes are getting higher and the housing glut is deepening, even if the last one is totally untrue. To deny the housing glut is to fly in the face of the cottage industry that says we will never, ever have too few houses again.

 

In other words, Friday's numbers trump everything. It's too easy to talk about, and if I were a simple talking head interviewing everyone, I would ask over and over again, "When will America start hiring?" And I'd ask the time-honored "Can we go higher without employment growth?"

 

 

BlackBerry owners aren't too thrilled with their phones, it seems.

According to data released Monday from Nielsen, only 42% of BlackBerry owners want their next phone to be a BlackBerry. A full 29% want an iPhone next, 21% want an Android phone, and 7% fall into the "other" category.

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That doesn't bode well for Research In Motion (RIMM), the company that makes the BlackBerry line of phones. Compare that to the loyalty among the iPhone crowd, of which 89% say they want another iPhone next.

 

Welcome to the age of re-priced media.

From the theatrical box office to every new platform of digital publishing and video entertainment, signs of fundamental pricing change are increasingly evident across the media economy. And if the frenzy is unprecedented, the catalyst for it is also without parallel—a wave of new media-friendly e-gadgets and e-devices, a near historic recession that devastated the ad-dependent publishing sector and the stark recognition of the existential threat to an industry in digital transformation.

“There is a re-balancing, a re-calibration, going on, and it’s a healthy one,” John Loughlin, executive vice president and general manager of Hearst Magazines, tells TheWrap. “In part, it was given a real nudge with the ad recession. We must bring our revenue streams more into balance.” So these days, media products from Hulu to the New York Times to 3D movies are introducing payments that will bring “balance” for producers -- and for consumers, sticker shock.

 

On a day when stocks are soaring, MasterCard (MA) and Visa (V) were singing the blues as news broke about a new payment system that uses cell phones instead of credit cards.

Bloomberg reported Sunday that three major wireless carriers -- AT&T (T), Verizon (VZ) and T-Mobile -- may begin testing a system that lets people pay for items at cash registers simply by waving their cell phones. Although such a system is still in early stages, the news was enough to cause concerns about the credit card sector.

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"This is definitely a game-changer," one industry consultant told Bloomberg. The wireless carriers may launch a test with Discover Financial (DFS) and Barclays (BCS) in four U.S. cities, the news service reported.

 

By Robert Holmes, TheStreet

 

Investors in stocks that trade for less than $5 think of nothing more than a quick return.

 

Some are lucky enough to double their money. Some get wiped out. After all, many large investment firms bar their own managers and traders from holding stocks that cost less than $5. Still, owning a stock that is volatile enough to double in price is Wall Street's version of the brass ring.

 

To find under-$5 stock candidates for a big return, turn to hard-to-find analysts' reports. Some analysts have boldly predicted that a handful of $5 stocks could double in price over the next several months.

 

 

The noose got a little tighter around Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo (GPMCY), Mexico's largest beer maker.

On July 12, the company lost in arbitration with Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD), the world's biggest brewer. Grupo Modelo had sought to void the transfer to BUD of the 50% stake of Modelo that Anheuser owned before the merger with InBev that created the beer giant.

The ruling clears the way for BUD to eventually acquire the rest of Grupo Modelo.

 

Companies struggling to connect with consumers right now should take a hard look at Amazon.com (AMZN). With a little price tweaking and a lot of innovation, the company’s aptly named Kindle has been so hot that AMZN is burning through inventory faster than suppliers can keep up.

 

The latest proof of the Kindle’s success comes today with word that Amazon has sold out of its newly re-priced and slimmed-down Kindle. So much for predictions of the e-reader’s doom in the shadow of the Apple (AAPL) iPad.

• Related Article: iPad Frenzy Hits Asia

Still, it's worth noting that the Kindle sales have been sparked in large part by price cuts. That means it's too soon to tell whether Amazon lowered prices too much too soon or whether it has found the sweet spot to connect with consumers.

 

In the Web-surfing world, Google (GOOG) is the undisputed king of searching. In the corporate boardroom, Google also appears to be the king of searching for startups to snatch up.

Despite what most folks would consider fairly lean times, Google has gone on a $1.1 billion shopping spree so far in 2010, buying up 22 companies.

The move shows that Google isn’t content to just rest on its search-engine laurels and is actively trying to grow and diversify its business. But the huge number of buyouts prompts the question of whether GOOG executives are making shrewd moves to stay on top or overreaching at a time when many corporations are on the defensive.

 

By Don Dion, TheStreet

 

ETF investors will be watching closely to see whether a rally in the energy sector gains strength after the strong earnings of several major companies last week. Here are five ETFs to keep an eye on as the week unfolds.

 

1. iShares Dow Jones U.S. Oil & Gas Production & Exploration Index (IEO)

 

It's the second week of energy earnings and several IEO heavyweights will report, chief among them Anadarko Petroleum (APC) and Chesapeake Energy (CHK). APC comprises 7% of IEO and CHK is 4%.

 

By Jim Cramer, TheStreet

 

We've had more false bottoms in the fertilizer stocks than in pretty much any other industry I have seen, but this time, I think it might be for real.

 

The conference call on Potash (POT) Thursday, coupled with the terrific Citigroup (C) upgrade on Friday, makes a compelling case that prices have bottomed. We've got low inventories around the world, a critical shortage of crops in China, making it a gigantic net importer, and no real scale supplies coming on. Canadian and Russian grain production could be down 23% and 20%, respectively.

 

All this means farmers will have to use as much fertilizer as possible to improve yields.

 

Do the market's troubles this year signal a big buying opportunity, or an opportunity to get out before the real pain? It depends on whom you ask.

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Some of the market's top minds are offering very divergent opinions on that topic. On the bullish side, for example, is Charles Schwab Chief Investment Strategist Liz Ann Sonders, who was on target with her calling of the start of the recent recession, and the turnaround that began last summer. Now, Sonders says, the market's troubles offer a chance to buy. “I’m not a market timer, so I’m not telling clients to back up the truck and load up,” she tells Kiplinger magazine. “But to me, this smacks of a buying opportunity. I think we can have an up year, but there could be a decent amount of pain between now and then.” Sonders says she's highest on healthcare and technology stocks, and she's skeptical of gold -- at least on a fundamental basis.

 

Top fund manager John Hussman thinks differently. Much differently. “We continue to observe a clear deterioration in leading indicators of economic activity,” Hussman writes in his latest market commentary on Hussman Funds’ web site. He thinks technical factors may drive the market higher in the short term. "[But] the historical evidence suggests that fundamentals have ultimately trumped technicals when we’ve observed similar warnings from economic indicators in the past. … My impression is that the economic cold water could hit investors very abruptly, so that gains achieved over several weeks may be suddenly erased in a matter of a few days.” His advice to those looking to the market to fund major expenses over a short period of years: “Get out.” His advice to those who have a long-term, diversified, disciplined system, however: “Stick to your discipline.”

 

 

 

Investors are understandably scared of the sovereign debt crisis unfolding in Europe. Amid their angst, however, they are ignoring a more likely, and significantly larger, debt catastrophe that is about to hit the nation with the second-largest economy in the world: Japan.

Two decades of stimulative, low-interest-rate fiscal policy have made Japan the most indebted nation in the developed world, and as new Prime Minister Naoto Kan recently said, in his first address to Parliament, that situation is not sustainable.

Japan has little choice but to raise interest rates substantially, with dire consequences far beyond its shores.  

Thursday night's bad economic news out of Japan means Toray Industries (TRYIY) goes on our watch list.

As a Japanese company, Toray moves with Japan's stock market. But much of its business and most of its growth are outside Japan. (For more on the bad economic news out of Japan, see my post).

Toray Industries was founded in 1926 as Japan's first maker of synthetic textiles. Today, the company is still weaving and knitting exotic textiles -- including for two of the global growth stories of the next decade.