Top Stocks

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Energy approved what is only the second permit to export liquefied natural gas from the United States.

The permit went to the Freeport LNG project in Texas, a joint project of Freeport LNG Investments, ZHA FLNG Purchaser, Dow Chemical subsidiary Texas LNG Holdings and Turbo LNG, a subsidiary of Japan’s Osaka Gas. The permit will allow Freeport to export up to 1.4 billion cubic feet to gas a day. Subject to environmental review and final regulatory approval, Freeport plans to begin exports in 2017.

The permit went to Freeport, but I think the immediate profits will go to Chicago Bridge and Iron, the engineering company most likely to win the bulk of work on Freeport.

 

What to make of the violent trading in silver (-SI) on Monday. Silver opened higher late Sunday in electronic trading and then collapsed, finally finding a bottom at $20.25 an ounce.

Had that level held, the result would have been the lowest price since August 2010. The sell-off was so extreme that the CME Group, which operates the New York Mercantile Exchange where silver is traded, halted trading in the metal four times overnight.

But silver -- and gold (-GC) -- surged in late trading, settling at $22.58 an ounce, up 23 cents. Gold, which had fallen to as low as $1,336.30, settled at $1,384.10, up $19.40.

Both were surging in electronic trading late Monday -- a signal perhaps that the metals have bottomed after severe slumps this year. 

 

 

There hasn't been any "May Day" calamity this month, as many skeptics had predicted. Instead, the market's barometers have been climbing to multiple new highs. So it's been a downer for the believers in the "Sell in May and Go Away" market strategy.

 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has been incorrigibly unhampered, posting its  221st record closing high this year at a majestic milestone 15,354.40 on May 17. The broader S&P 500 stock index also climbed to another record, at 1,667.42, and the NASDAQ composite index soared to its highest close since October 2000 at 3,498.97.

 

Time to worry? 

 

Information provided by Theflyonthewall.com  

By Louis Bedigian 

 

By Mike Cintolo, Cabot Top Ten Trader

Our latest Top Ten list has an impressive crop of stocks with good stories and charts that have shown large recent buying power (usually on earnings).

Our favorite is Yelp (YELP), a relatively recent IPO that has a great, sustainable story, rapid sales growth and a stock that just exploded higher on earnings. The company is becoming the 21st-century, interactive version of the yellow pages.

Yelp is essentially the de-facto search engine that connects local businesses with consumers who are ready to buy. One study showed that just having a decent presence on Yelp can boost sales by about $8,000, with that number tripling if it's combined with marketing efforts. 

By Suzanne McGee

It shouldn't have come as a great shock to anyone that Dell's (DELL) fiscal first-quarter results, reported Thursday, were rather dire.  

By Richard Suttmeier

 

This week's earnings reports focus on 18 buy-rated stocks in the retail-wholesale sector. This profile is on the front nine, those scheduled to report Monday, Tuesday and pre-market on Wednesday.

On Tuesday I focus on the back nine, those reporting after the close on Wednesday through pre-market on Friday.

 

Let's call an earnings beat a birdie, a match a par, and a miss a bogey. Having an under-par round of earnings from buy rated retail stocks will be a key to sustaining the upward momentum in the overall stock market.

 

Among last week's earnings reports were five buy-rated stocks in the retail-wholesale sector. Three beat earnings estimates and two missed, so there were three birdies and two bogies.

 

By Alyssa Oursler 

By George Putnam, The Turnaround Letter

One of our favorite places to look for turnaround candidates is a list of the worst performers in a certain segment of the market. Because investor sentiment can change very rapidly, today’s dogs often become tomorrow’s darlings, and those who are willing to go against the crowd can reap significant profits.

Among the worst performers in the S&P 500 index since the market hit its lows last June are Apple (AAPL), F5 Networks (FFIV), J.C. Penney (JCP) and Monster Beverage (MNST).

To be sure, many of these stocks carry some risk. There are, after all, reasons why they have underperformed.  But the market often overreacts to these risks, and if these companies can fix their problems their stockholders will be very handsomely rewarded. 

You've been an idiot if you've sold almost any stock so far since the start of 2013. You've been a moron if you've been waiting for revenue to pick up before you've bought. You have been a fool if you've feared the Federal Reserve would act imminently.

You've been a total bozo if you've listened to President Obama about the crashing of the economy because of the sequester -- particularly if you've sold the defense names, which have been the best-acting stocks in the book.

 

In fact, the moves are eerie. It is as if there had been an edict that every stock -- other than gold stocks, a copper or an iron ore stock and maybe a few steels -- that everything has to go higher.

 

To me this speaks directly to the notion of underinvestment and the supply and demand of equities.

 

By Tim Parker