Top Stocks

By Burke Speaker, InvestorPlace.com

 

Coffee prices surged to a 12-year high Monday, pushed by last year's poor Central and South American harvests and upcoming heavy storms in other coffee-producing regions that are adding to an already tight period for availability.

 

Now consumers could be taking a hit, with Dunkin' Donuts, Folgers and Maxwell House brands all feeling the heat.

 

By Jim Cramer, TheStreet

 

Is Salesforce.com (CRM) the Apple (AAPL) to Microsoft (MSFT) and Oracle (ORCL)?

 

The more I think about it, the more I am realizing that Salesforce.com has become the de facto standard for all software, the way for corporations to free themselves of how they communicate and to free themselves from desktop communications.

 

I have been an unabashed proselytizer for Salesforce.com for about 80 points on its share price, thinking that its cloud computing model would change forever the way sales forces work. We all know that sales force accountability is one of the great weaknesses of business, and CRM enables managers to see what's really going on through sales software that's delivered in a cheaper, easier way, through the Web.

 

It's been another rough week for the market, with disappointing unemployment data overshadowing some positive economic signs, like the Federal Reserve's report of a strong gain in industrial production in July.

 

But while fear continues to win out in the stock market, several of the investing world's top strategists are continuing to find opportunity.

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Take newsletter guru and Forbes columnist Jim Oberweis. In his latest Forbes piece, Oberweis focuses on one area of the market that has him particularly optimistic: semiconductor capital equipment stocks. “After a tough decade for technology, I believe the time is ripe for chip-equipment companies,” he writes. Chip fabricators stopped buying equipment in 2008 when the economy tanked, crushing these stocks, Oberweis says. But while spending began to rebound in 2009 and many capital equipment stocks have more than doubled off their lows, “price/earnings ratios for many smaller equipment makers remain low by historical measures,” he says. “Bearish sentiment in this arena is as bad as I can remember, but the facts don’t seem to back it." 

 

 

Written by Douglas Estadt

Asia’s gaming market is providing attractive investment opportunities. Business at casinos in Macau and Singapore is absolutely booming. Here are just a couple of the reasons we believe Las Vegas Sands (LVS) is the most attractive casino stock:

 

• It recently announced a play to pay down $1 billion in debt, which will strengthen their cash position

• The new casino in Singapore is breaking all expectations and forecasts.

 

Investing in bad things is producing good returns.

Just look at the Vice Fund (VICEX), which goes out of its way to put money into habits your mother might frown on. The fund is up 4.5% this year and ranks in the top 3% of its peers, the Associated Press reports.

Vice invests almost equally in cigarettes, booze, gaming and casinos and defense contractors. Wait a minute. Defense? The idea is that defense profits off of the escalation of conflicts. Not exactly a vice, but we'll cut the fund some slack. 

By Eric Rosenbaum, TheStreet

 

What’s preventing a breakout in oil stocks: the overhang from the BP (BP) oil spill or economic uncertainty?

 

BP had its best rally since the oil spill when the Macondo well was capped on July 15. Then, when the markets hit a three-month peak on Aug. 5, BP reached its highest price since the oil spill crisis began. Shortly after, BP shares ran out of gas.

 

The pattern is exactly the same for Transocean (RIG) and Anadarko Petroleum (APC), whose shares spiked when BP capped the well and climbed higher on August 5. They have since pulled back as concerns about global economic growth caused crude oil prices to drop below $80.

 

A record number of U.S. workers are looking to money they've set aside for their golden years as they struggle to survive the economic downturn, according to a survey by Fidelity Investments.

It's not a move they're happy with, but options are running out in these difficult times.

Fidelity analyzed the 401k accounts it runs for about 11 million workers and found that 11% took out a loan from their accounts in the year ended June 30, according to CNBC. That's up from 9% in the previous year. 

By Jeff Reeves, InvestorPlace.com

Google Inc. (GOOG) joined the stock market six years ago yesterday, on Aug. 19, 2004. Google stock has seen relentless growth since then, with its first trades at about $100 a share eclipsed by a quick race skyward. GOOG shares are up an amazing 330% since that IPO.

Of course, few people have been sitting on Google for that whole run. And so far in 2010, investors don’t have all that much to be happy about. Shares are down 24% year to date as of this writing and about 47% off all-time highs near $740 in late 2007. Google opened the day after its sixth birthday trading below $470 and has failed to touch the $600 mark since early January.

So what’s the score with Google? Are the best days behind the company, or is the future still bright for this Internet and technology giant?

 

By Anthony Agnello, InvestorPlace.com

 

The annual remodeling of the Apple (AAPL) iPhone has made it less of a tech tool and more a fashion accessory. As a result, the iPhone is the tech equivalent of Angelina Jolie -- people just can't get enough info.

 

Though the iPhone 4 is less than two months out of the box, it's time again to start the rumor mill about the next round of upgrades for 2011 and beyond. And this goes far beyond the buzz of a handset that is compatible with Verizon (VZ).

 

A look at some recent Apple patents reveals some radical changes in the works for the next generation of iPhones. Here are five of the most compelling patents and prospective upgrades:

 

What ever happened to "mixed"? As in "We have mixed data."

 

Employment claims weren't good. Industrial production was pretty good. Retail sales weren't bad. Housing isn't good. The U.S. economy is going slower. The international economy is getting faster, as we saw yesterday with the Bundesbank raising the German growth rate from 1% to 3%.

 

If you overlay earnings, it's not even mixed. It's positive.

 

Starbucks chicken nuggets? Starbucks toilet paper?

Just a matter of time. Or so it seems from the coffee giant's plans to get more branded products into grocery stores. Desperate for growth after the economy turned, executives at Starbucks (SBUX) have developed a strategy that focuses on supermarkets, The Wall Street Journal reports.

We've already seen Starbucks ice cream and bottled Frappuccino in grocery aisles. This year, Starbucks has been busy getting its Via instant coffee into supermarkets as well as Target (TGT) and Wal-Mart (WMT) locations.

 

Where would you cut government spending? Got any ideas?

That's what the British government is asking its citizens as it faces extreme spending cuts. The government is in trouble and needs to chop to the tune of $44 billion a year.

The suggestions have been pouring in, according to The Associated Press. Get rid of the queen, said one. Make convicts run on treadmills to produce power for the national electricity grid, said another.

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Other ideas are a little more sensible.

 

In my last blog post, I talked about Wall Street's expectations that a period of sub-trend growth lies ahead but that a double-dip recession isn't likely. On Wednesday, the crack analysts at ISI Group chimed in with plenty of evidence supporting this view. But they have a warning, too: While they don't believe a double-dip recession is in the cards, they caution that their 2% growth forecast for next year is moving dangerously close to the economy's 1.9% stall speed.

 

Allow me to explain. The economy is like a shark. It needs to move at a certain pace to stay alive. The supply chain needs to be humming along, or else a whipsaw of reduced consumer demand reverberates through retailers, wholesalers and distributors and eventually results in big factory shutdowns.

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Similar behavior is seen in the labor market as a negative feedback loop of reduced demand and labor cuts, and lost confidence pulls down economic activity.

 

By Jeff Reeves, InvestorPlace.com

When most consumers think of Burger King (BKC), they think of cheap eats for their lunch break. But a look at some recent menu experimentation shows BK is looking to change that with a push into the premium arena via higher-priced, higher-quality food.

Take an upscale Burger King brunch menu in test markets, including cibatta breakfast sandwiches and mimosas. Or its summer ribs promotion, which was so successful that Burger King sold out of ribs early.

Or consider Burger King's latest push for upscale eats -- Whopper Bars in select areas, offering some rather spectacular reinventions of its Whopper.