Top Stocks

By Scott Moritz, TheStreet

 

Apple (AAPL) chief executive Steve Jobs kicked off Thursday's iPhone show with a few round numbers: 450,000 iPads sold, 600,000 iBooks downloaded and 4 billion applications downloaded to date.

 

On Monday, Apple it sold 300,000 iPads on the first day they hit the market. The company has sold 150,000 more iPads since. The iPad sales numbers, while solid, fall short of some of the most aggressive forecasts for the new device.

 

According to bloggers covering the event, Jobs emphasized the joy the device seems to bring people who buy it, flashing pictures of a girl gleefully opening an iPad box.

 

Nike (NKE) sat tight while the Tiger Woods spectacle unfolded, offering only vague statements of support as mistress after mistress came forward with sordid allegations of infidelity.

Now, after months of near silence, the company has unveiled a new commercial starring the golfer. And the reaction to the spot (included below) seems to be mostly negative.

Tiger doesn't say a word in the advertisement. He doesn't do much, either, except look soulfully at the camera. In the background is the voice of his late father, whose comments are supposed to have more weight, presumably, in light of all the scandals. 

The tech blog rumor mill is running at full speed today about a partnership between online retail powerhouse Amazon (AMZN) and brick-and-mortar discounter Target (TGT). Supposedly, Amazon's hit Kindle e-reader will be on sale in Target stores later this month.

 

Engadget kicked off the frenzy with what looks to be a covert screenshot of Target’s inventory computer. Target is being conspicuously closed-mouth on the subject, deflecting requests for comments with a simple vanilla statement: “Target has no specific plans to share at this time, and we don’t comment on speculation or rumors.”

 

But let’s play devil’s advocate and assume the partnership is in the works.

 

By Lauren Tara LaCapra, TheStreet

 

Wall Street wants Bank of America (BAC) to get back on a growth trajectory, but it's unclear whether the firm will deliver on sales expectations with its first-quarter results next week.

 

Bank of America's revenue shrank by 11%, on average, in each of the previous three quarters. The drop reflected an easing of the early-2009 mortgage-refinancing wave, seasonal patterns and declines in its U.S. consumer business -- the bread and butter of B of A.

 

When compared to other big competitors with similar business lines, the difference is startling.

 

By Scott Moritz, TheStreet

 

Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) have taken their escalating turf war to another front: mobile advertising.

 

When Apple unveils the next version of its iPhone software Thursday, it's also expected to outline its plans for a mobile advertising push. The move would give Apple yet another revenue line in its expanding iTunes/App Store empire and provide a strong position in the growing smartphone-driven advertising race.

 

But just as Apple is set to move forward, Google, the search ad giant, looks to be a violation by federal referees. Federal Trade Commission regulators reportedly have ended their review of Google's $750 million acquisition of mobile ad shop AdMob and are preparing to challenge the deal.

 

Sirius XM Radio (SIRI) is making another assault on the all important $1 share price this week. Should the stock fail to trade above that level, the company is at risk for being de-listed by the Nasdaq later this month.

 

The stakes are high. Being de-listed by the preeminent exchange for growth stocks could result in the stock trading lower due to the low levels of activity on lesser exchanges.

 

Well, at least that would be the perception of investors, and perception in the market is everything. It would not matter that this company is performing well and likely to grow significantly in the near future.

 

• Is Sirius a Top Stock to buy now?

 

Would the Nasdaq exchange risk losing one of its most popular and widely traded companies because its share price is below $1? I don't think so.

 

Some investors have already made up their mind the stock market rally is over. Others are convinced there’s nowhere to go but up. Both views are over-simplified market predictions considering the complicated economic environment.

• Complete coverage: Seven reasons the bull market will charge on

A closer look at the latest stock market news proves that while things aren’t all coming up roses on Wall Street, there are plenty of reasons to be cautiously optimistic the bull market will continue. Here’s a brief look at three of the latest reasons from the last few days that indicate the market should continue its run:

 

By Jim Cramer, TheStreet

 

So I am answering some Twitter questions last night on the way home from work -- @JimJCramer if you want to play -- and some guy screams at me that he can't believe I didn't mention Greece in my whole opening monologue. And I am aghast. The whole segment was devoted to Greece, with two specific mentions, I tell him, except it wasn't devoted to Greece in the way that everyone else is doing it.

 

The devotion to Greece was an homage to the United States, which does not have Grecian bond problems. Again, as I have said several times now, I think the economy is so strong in this country that we will have much higher receipts and a lower deficit than people think.

 

 

Aerospace and defense stock Honeywell (HON) raised its guidance last week, driving shares up slightly in the last week even while the broader market has rolled back a bit. HON now expects first-quarter profit to range from 45 to 49 cents per share, up from prior guidance for 40 to 45 cents and for the full year expects profits to reach the top end of its prior $2.20 to $2.40 forecast.

 

Honeywell’s strength isn’t a surprise. Honeywell has met or exceeded earnings estimates for each of the last four quarters. Additionally, HON has grown its earnings per share in each of the last four consecutives quarters. As the economy has improved, HON has been able to bank more orders.

• Dividend increases in the works for these five stocks

But perhaps the biggest opportunity for investors lies in Honeywell’s dividend history and the prospect of a dividend boost in a matter of weeks.

 

This post comes from The Motley Fool's Rich Duprey.

 

Like the song says, investors are looking for love (or at least stocks to love) in all the wrong places. They'll pile into the momentum stocks everyone else buys but ignore lesser-known opportunities for fear of straying from the crowd.

 

Yet the stocks most likely to deliver outsize returns are often overlooked by Wall Street and Main Street, and thus are undervalued.

• Check out hot ETFs

Below are three under-the-radar stocks that brim with promise. Each has garnered less than 100 active recommendations on MSN CAPS, despite earning analysts' estimates of double-digit long-term growth.

 

 

I'm selling food wholesaler Sysco (SYY) out of my Dividend Income Portfolio with this post. 

The stock made a new 52-week high Tuesday. That brings the dividend yield down to 3.38%. 

That was attractive when the economic recovery still seemed iffy and I was willing to trade some yield for safety. But now that the recovery is more certain -- if not the speed or momentum of the recovery (for more on those issues, see this recent post) -- I'm willing to stretch a little more for yield. To do that, I need to clear a slot in this 10-stock portfolio, and that means selling Sysco.

 

Even Gordon Gekko can't make it in this market.

Michael Douglas, who played the ruthless trader in the film "Wall Street," said he sold his stocks at the end of last year, according to The Sun.

The actor said he lost 35% to 40% of his net worth in the 2008 crash. "At the end of last year, I took a whole bunch out," he said, according to The Sun. 

One of the key parts of my investment approach is finding and learning from strategists who have proven long-term track records, something that can be hard to do in an investment world filled with unproven pundits and talking heads. And, when it comes to a long-term track record, few can match the one compiled by James Simons.

 

Simons, a quantitative trading pioneer who recently stepped down as chief executive of Renaissance Technologies, the firm he founded nearly 30 years ago, has managed one of the most successful hedge funds in history -- the Medallion fund.

The numbers are the stuff of which legends are made: Medallion has averaged returns of about 45% a year (after fees) since its inception in 1988,

 

All investors search for the "Holy Grail" of investing: an investment strategy that just can't miss. I know, I've been looking for it for over 40 years and haven't found it yet. I've had to change my strategy several times. I had a new idea recently and decided to try it out. I'd like to share it with you and see what you think.

Here's my idea: Find the sector ETF that is currently having the highest relative strength and try to hand pick the best stocks from that portfolio. It's the Willie Sutton Theory. Willie was a famous bank robber and was asked:"Why do you rob banks?" His reply: "Because that's where the money is!"

If as a group, these are the stocks performing the best then why not search for the gems in the mother lode? 

Wellpoint (WLP) handed President Barack Obama a nice gift in the middle of the healthcare debate. Its Anthem Blue Cross unit decided to raise insurance premiums as much as 39% -- giving much-needed ammunition to Congressional Democrats advocating for changes to the system.

The ill-timed premium increase turned WellPoint into a hot topic, and its president, Angela Braly, justified the move and became the target of criticism from all sides.

Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that Braly was so concerned for her personal safety that Wellpoint spent $151,000 on her security, according to the Footnoted blog. The money went toward bodyguards, a security-enhanced vehicle and an in-home alarm system.