Top Stocks

By Jim Lowell, Forbes ETF Advisor

First, SPDR S&P Emerging Asia Pacific (GMF) seeks investment results that correspond to the price and yield performance of the S&P Asia Pacific Emerging BMI Index, which is made up of companies from the emerging Asia-Pacific regions.

It began trading in March 2007, and has a market value of close to $500 million. The top five country representations are China (36%), Taiwan (25.3%), India (15.8%), Indonesia (6.8%), and Malaysia (6.7%). The top three sectors are financials (28.1%), information technology (19.8%), and energy (10.9%).

The top ten holdings are Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM), China Construction Bank, China Mobile (CHL), Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (IDCBY), PetroChina (PTR), Bank of China, Reliance Industries, Hon Hai Precision, CNOOC (CEO), and China Petroleum & Chemical (SNP).

By Richard Saintvilus

On April 2, when we last discussed (TheStreet) retail giant Wal-Mart (WMT), I made a case for why I thought the stock was undervalued despite (at the time) posting 12% gains.

In that article, while comparing the relative performances of rivals Costco (COST) and Target (TGT), I said:

"For now, from an investment perspective, the stock is still trading at an attractive valuation. When compared to Costco and Target, which are both trading at higher P/E ratios, a case can be made that Wal-Mart is undervalued by at least 10%. With continued operational improvements and a recovering economy, patient investors should expect shares to approach the lower $80s by the second half of the year."

By Andrew Sachais

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testified on Wednesday in front of Congress explaining that the Fed may or may not rein in quantitative easing in upcoming sessions, based on the future economic situation. That brought a much needed pullback to equity markets, and introduced further uncertainty over the state of the economy for the rest of 2013.

Meanwhile, earlier this week, Home Depot (HD) released strong earnings and raised its outlook. The company believes that the housing market, if not the entire economy, is on the rebound.

The first chart below is of Home Depot over S&P Equal Weight ETF (RSP). The pair shows the relative strength of Home Depot versus equity markets over a two-year span.

Now that most of the large-cap stocks have piled up gigantic gains as the market continues to soar to record highs, many investors have started to scout for still undiscovered and underpriced stocks in the small-cap sector that show promising prospects for strong growth.

That means a rotation in buying interest is starting to take hold towards lesser-known stocks that so far have not fully participated in the current robust bull run. A sector rotation usually follows the first part of a major bull market which broadens the extent of the advance.

One notable small-cap stock that has started to attract increasing attention is Genpact (G), a global company engaged in managing business processes, particularly information technology and financial functions, for major companies worldwide. A positive attribute of Genpact is its history as a former division of General Electric (GE), where Genpact provided essential services in managing its various business processes that improved the giant conglomerate's widely varied operations.

While some gold companies may boast attractive valuations at the moment, the atmosphere for mergers and acquisitions in the sector has cooled down considerably in the last year or so, says Jamie Sokalsky, president and chief executive officer of Barrick Gold (ABX).

At the Bloomberg Canada Economic Summit this week, Sokalsky said the general mood is "anti-M&A" in the gold space, particularly at the senior level.

Although valuations are low, Sokalsky noted that such acquisitions might require billions of dollars in additional investment to build a project, while achieving production may take a long period of time. Investors are also hoping for free cash flow, which he said they would perhaps rather see "returned to them in a higher dividend at some point."

By James Brumley

If you've been lucky enough to own Internet stocks -- mostly search stocks like Qihoo 360 Technology (QIHU), Yahoo (YHOO), Baidu (BIDU) or Google (GOOG) -- of late, then congratulations ... you've made good money.

Heck, it doesn't even matter which one you owned, as they've all outpaced the market.

Still, veteran investors are understandably asking themselves just how much longer this unusual pocket of strength will hold up. Are the underlying companies truly doing this well, or are traders simply gravitating to Internet stocks because there’s nowhere else to invest, and they know the web’s not going away?

By Tom Aspray

Wednesday was one of the widest-ranging days since the middle of April, with a 277-point range in the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) and 41 points in the S&P 500 ($INX) as traders reacted to mixed messages from the Federal Reserve. The overnight selling in Asia was exacerbated by a drop in preliminary readings on Chinese manufacturing.

The European markets were also down sharply with the German DAX Index down 2.6% in early trading and the Dow opening sharply lower.

Several of the major averages formed what is known as key reversals in Wednesday's trading. This chart shows the NYSE Composite Index ($NYA), which opened Wednesday at 9605, above the prior day's close at 9598. NYA made a significant new high early in the day at 9695, then closed at 9508, which was well below Tuesday's low at 9556.

• Diamond Offshore (DO) upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Goldman
• FactSet (FDS) upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray
• Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) upgraded to Hold from Underperform at Jefferies
• Pacific Sunwear (PSUN) upgraded to Buy from Hold at Topeka
• Seagate (STX) upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank

By Tim Parker

If you were hoping to see the often reported, heavily rumored, and overhyped Apple (AAPL) iWatch this year, the chances of you getting your wish don't look good. KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes that the device won't arrive until late 2014. This is particularly notable because numerous, otherwise reputable sources, like Bloomberg, have reported that the device will hit the street at the end of 2013.

It's true that this is one more analyst adding to the glut of rumors already published, but he has a stronger track record than most.

He points out that because iOS will require a series of large changes in order to accommodate the device, those changes will take time to implement. With Apple firmly focused on iOS7, it may have worked these changes into the upcoming update but Kuo doesn't see that as likely.

Last week, gurus finished reporting their portfolio updates for the first quarter, and buying activity was more concentrated among certain stocks than others. GuruFocus' S&P 500 Screener demonstrates that the companies the most money managers GuruFocus follows bought or increased their shareholdings of are: Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Citigroup (C), JPMorgan (JPM) and Oracle (ORCL).

Oracle (ORCL)

Oracle was purchased by two money managers GuruFocus follows in the first quarter, making it the fifth-most purchased of the S&P 500 ($INX). The stock in the first quarter traded between $31.25 and $36.34. On Monday, it traded at $34.90 after gaining 4.7% year to date.

By Zacks Equity Research

On May 21, we downgraded our long-term recommendation on Safeway (SWY) to "neutral" from "outperform" as this North American food and drug retail giant is showing signs of sluggish growth. The stock carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Why the downgrade?

On Apr 25, Safeway reported a weak first quarter that lagged our expectations. Despite earnings growth of 16.7%, adjusted earnings of 35 cents missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by a penny. Revenues stood at about $10 billion, flat year over year, trailing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $10.2 billion.

Margins were under pressure in the first quarter. Despite the benefit of New Year sales, identical store (ID) sales (excluding fuel) inched up 1.5% from the year-ago quarter. ID sales growth was negated by the disposition of Genuardi's stores in 2012 and soft fuel sales.

When you see almost any market down 7%, it's pretty shocking -- except, perhaps, in the case of Japan. For the Japanese market, which has been walked higher for months, a 7% decline may not be all that much. This was a market that had been up about 50% year to date, so you are talking about a correction that still takes it down only to a 39% gain for 2013. An artificial market with a real correction should not play havoc with the rest of the world. But when it's in conjunction with still one more disappointing -- not horrendous, but disappointing -- manufacturing number from China, the heated U.S. market can't shake it off.

It's funny -- if the Federal Reserve minutes hadn't been so questioning of Ben Bernanke's bond-buying program, we might actually have had a situation that could have been shrugged off with a 4% correction -- 1.5% from top to bottom Wednesday and then 2.5% if we are lockstep with Europe Thursday. Instead, though, that dreaded fear of Fed tapering is occurring as Europe remains in a recession and as China seems to be headed into a relatively severe slowdown. As a result, this may mean that a 5%-to-7% correction over several days makes more sense.